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A Nuts-and-Bolts Guide: What’s the Difference Between AI and RPA?
A recent HealthLeaders Revenue Cycle Exchange event offered the opportunity for revenue cycle executives to voice their opinion on Artificial Intelligence solutions and the place AI and Deep Learning will occupy in future revenue cycle tech iterations. Lots of “rah-rah” for AI, right? Wrong! An article at HealthLeadersMedia.com paints a pretty bleak picture: “Meaningless,” “scary,”…
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The 2019 Federal Reserve Payments Study Illustrates Dynamics of Robust Economy with Payment Diversity
The Federal Reserve released the 2019 Federal Reserve Payments Study Executive Report on December 19, 2019. Based on 2018 compared to 2015, aggregate payment growth in “core noncash payments,” including debit card, credit card, ACH, and checks, were up as a whole by 6.7% representing an incremental 30.6 billion transactions valued at $97B! Comparing actual…
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American Healthcare: Where Fraud is “Normal”
Imagine having a lingering cold and sore throat, and, after a quick visit to your primary care doctor for a throat swab and blood test, you get a bill for … $28,395.50 You read that correctly. Fortunately, the patient in question, Alexa Kasdan, was insured and it fell to the insurer to pay the bill…
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Y2K: A Thing of the Past or History Repeating Itself?
In today’s world, abbreviations are utilized on a daily basis. Simple contractions such as “don’t”, “couldn’t”, and “we’ll” are all commonly used in the English language. In the banking world, abbreviations are most common in the date field, as many in society choose to abbreviate the year from 01/08/2020 to 1/8/20. Seems harmless, right? Maybe…
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Time for Real-Time Payments in the Healthcare Space?
Real-time payments in the healthcare space, while catching on, are far from ubiquitous at this point. As reported by PYMNTS.com, barriers to real-time payment adoption remain, despite the benefits observed in other consumer-facing industries like insurance and financial services. The costs involved in implementing new services are among the top concerns for payment providers, of…
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2020-2030: Payments In The Next Decade
We love this time of year! It’s a week when everyone the payments industry can take a deep breath, celebrate successes, reflect, and then blog about the future. And now that 2020 is upon us, what better time to “look ahead” toward 2030! PYMNTS.com is one of the first publications to make a prediction related…
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A Look Back – and Looking Forward to 2020
And another year comes to a close! It’s been our pleasure to share observations, insights, and solutions from across the industry via the OrboNation Blog. As 2019 comes to end, we have much to be thankful for. Most importantly, however, we’re thankful for the clients and customers that are crucial to OrboGraph’s success. Looking back,…
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The Rise Of Quality Cycle Management and the Power of Automation
“Value-based care delivery” describes a healthcare system where payment is predicated on quality and health outcomes and not just services delivered. From a clinical and care delivery standpoint, health systems are moving toward value-based care delivery. However, as Forbes reports, from a business and financial standpoint, enabling technology is still catching up. Payment tied to…
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Intelligent Automation & Cloud-Specific Services for FI’s
As part of a recent series of blog posts about Intelligent Automation, Adam Swinglehurst of Accenture offered the chart below to illustrate the necessary “overlap” as AI solutions develop and improve. The role of intelligent automation is important to Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) across the globe. CFOs seek to drive efficiencies, create team capacity, meet…
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Podcast & White Paper: The State of Cybersecurity in Healthcare: Still Much Ground to Cover
The Coker Group has produced an informative podcast entitled The State of Cybersecurity in Healthcare: Still Much Ground to Cover, along with an excellent white paper: Coker’s white paper, The State of Cybersecurity in Healthcare: Still Much Ground to Cover, addresses the problem of cybersecurity breaches, sources of threats, CIO responsibilities, working with third-party vendors,…
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Don’t Keep Checks in Your Wallet!
If you’ve seen the Leonardo DiCaprio movie Catch Me If You Can, then you know who Frank Abagnale is, and why he’s a good guy to listen to when it comes to protecting yourself from fraudsters – – he is (or was) the best, after all. Abagnale is using his powers for good these days,…
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Industry Survey Results: 5 Pain Points for Revenue Cycle Executives
Last month, the consulting company Navigant published insights titled “5 Pain Points for Revenue Cycle Executives”, based on a survey of Hospital Revenue Cycle Executives conducted in partnership with the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and prepared by professionals with direct experience working with healthcare professionals in executive and revenue cycle leadership. As reported via…
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Media Coverage of Real Time Payments Can be Complicated
The FedNow Service, the Federal Reserve’s planned faster payments service, promises to have a positive impact on the speed with payments are processed. As the FED navigates their way toward a solution, The Clearing House continues to promote RTP (real-time payments). But the path to a world of real-time, integrated payments is not an easy…
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Are Your Revenue Cycle and IT Teams Fighting?
A session entitled “The Mix of IT, Revenue Cycle and Analytics” at the Becker’s Hospital Review Health IT + Revenue Cycle conference in Chicago in October offered insights of healthcare executives discussing the importance and urgency in solidifying partnerships between the IT and revenue cycle departments of a healthcare organization. Panelists present were Shon Brink,…
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So Many Payment Options… So Much Consumer Confusion?
Remember “cash, check, or credit card”? Ah, the simpler days of yore. As reported in PaymentsJournal.com, we are experiencing more payments choices at the consumer level than ever before. Indeed, their article starts out with a parade of options: “Swipe, dip, tap. Credit, charge, debit, prepaid, reloadable. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Starbucks, Dunkin’.…
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The Medical Lockbox: Legacy System or Innovative Platform?
The Medical Lockbox is an essential part of the AR process as it is the first touchpoint where paper-originated insurance remittances, payments, and patient payments are received. However, recent new technologies like AI and Deep Learning are evolving the once legacy system into a high-valued, innovative platform that provides healthcare payments professionals with the ability…
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Financial Crime Alert: Couple Learns That Life Is Not a Monopoly Game
Just when you thought you heard it all when it comes to financial crimes, here comes … accidental? A Pennsylvania couple thought they were tokens on a Monopoly board when they had $120,000 mistakenly deposited into their bank account. As far as they were concerned, they’d passed “GO” and picked a pretty good Community Chest…
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Healthcare Price Transparency Order: Will It Make Costs Go UP or DOWN?
This summer, price transparency advocates finally made progress with a new executive order on “Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First”. In a RevCycleIntelligence article, several hospitals warned that prices may actually increase with such an order — not surprising, in that reforms many times have unknown ramifications due to…
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Congratulations, Mark Forbis of JHA!
Jack Henry & Associates Inc, a provider of technology and payment processing services for the banking industry based in Missouri, recently announced the retirement of their executive vice president and chief technology officer, Mark Forbis. Mark began his career in 1982 with Systemics. He was named vice president and CTO at Jack Henry in 2006…
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Epic, Cerner and Others Reveal Just How Their EHRs are Interoperable
Healthcare IT News interviewed key interoperability executives from four high-profile EHR vendors – Cerner, DrChrono, eClinicalWorks, and Epic Systems – and discussed how they address system interoperability and overall health IT interoperability. Epic, for instance, offers its Happy Together feature, which allows patients and providers to see data from multiple sources in a single, merged…
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Keys to Successful Mobile Banking in 2019
As technological innovation continues to evolve society, so does the way it affects society's interaction with businesses, including their banks!
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Health Data Standards Support Healthcare Interoperability
The healthcare industry contains a number of different standards development organizations (SDOs) which create, define, update, and maintain health data standards through collaborative processes that involve health IT users. SDO’s are well regarded as they promote interoperability and heightened efficiency. However, lack of widespread adoption and use lessen the effectiveness of existing standards, according to…
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Short-term & Long-term Implications of Real-time Payments
The US real-time payments network currently reaches about 50% of the population, and was on track, via private sector channels, to provide complete coverage by the end of next year, as noted in an article at Forbes.com by Ike Brannon, a senior fellow at the Jack Kemp Foundation.
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To Improve Revenue Cycle Performance, Look Beyond Mere EHR
A new Navigant analysis has found that over 60 percent of hospitals and health systems are not realizing optimal value from their EHR system.
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Deep Dive: Financial Crime & Fraud in the Age of Cybersecurity
Want to go deep on financial fraud and crime, and learn the difference between the two while also learning about the role of modern cybersecurity tools in curtailing both? Get comfortable and spend some time with this comprehensive article from McKinsey & Company covering Financial crime and fraud in the age of cybersecurity. Their analysis…
Read More OrboGraph Joins NICE Actimize’s X-Sight Marketplace, the Industry’s First Financial Crime Management Ecosystem
Partnering with the X-Sight Marketplace, OrboGraph to deliver image analysis and recognition technologies for fraud prevention Hoboken, N.J., September 30, 2019 – Helping financial services organizations keep up with a changing market landscape, NICE Actimize, a NICE business (Nasdaq: NICE) and leader in Autonomous Financial Crime Management, today announced that OrboGraph has joined the X-Sight Marketplace, the industry’s first…
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Poor Digital Experience Equals Lost Patients
An article at HealthcareDive.com paints a bleak picture for healthcare providers who are not staying up-to-date with the latest digital patient interfaces. About 41% of patients said they would consider switching providers for a better digital experience, according to a survey of more than 1,600 adults commissioned by New York-based patient billing company Cedar. Compared…
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Traditional Fraud Prevention Falls Short in Age of AI
Paymnts.com reported recent data (from West Monroe Partners) that found 77 percent of banks are already putting AI solutions to use in some way. Count Chase as one of the forefront adopters of Artificial Intelligence solutions and technology. Chase is embracing AI and ML to help customers conduct business while preventing fraudsters from making off with data or financial…
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One Bed – One Bill; A Concept Whose Time Has Finally Come?
You might remember the post where we explored the misadventures of a patient who tried — in vain — to anticipate and control the costs of a planned procedure by interacting with his medical facility. It didn’t go so well. Loyale Healthcare recently asked a question that a lot of people — medical professionals and…
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Business Satisfaction with Banks: Dips But Remains High
A new report by FIS finds that business satisfaction has dipped slightly, but remains high. The FIS research found that 78% of U.S. SMBs report being extremely or very satisfied with their PFIs, down slightly from 81% in the 2018 study. SMBs with $25M-$75M in revenue reported the highest satisfaction in their banking providers (85%).…
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AI and the Resurrection of Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law famously states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years, though the cost of computers is halved. A new essay on Medium.com explores how Moore’s Law had actually been “phasing out” for a period of time: Moore’s Law, one of the fundamental laws indicating the exponential progress in the…
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AI Becoming More and More Vital in Banking
Let’s face it: Human beings are indispensable, but we are learning that in order to bring the level of service that is expected in today’s marketplace, machines and analytics have to work together and deliver quicker, more intelligent solutions than we’ve previously seen or experienced. This is the root of Artificial Intelligence and its value…
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Pew: Congress Should Adopt ONC Guidelines for Cures API Mandates
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) has issued guidelines for adopting application programming interfaces (APIs) into health data and EHR use. (You can see their report on hospitals’ usage of EHR data here.) The organizations who signed on to the letter are: American Academy of Family Physicians American Academy of Neurology…
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Cashing Checks: Like Gold in Your Pocket – Ask This NFL Star
Checks are still ubiquitous across generations. They remain popular, and they are — in spite of repeated premature eulogies — still alive and well in the world of treasury and B2B. Let’s say you have a check payment from a friend, or you’re running a small business on check payments, or you’re still getting a…
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Inaccurate Cost Estimation Causes Patient Dissatisfaction
Modern insurance plans — and, indeed, cases where people remain un- or under-insured — mean that whenever possible, healthcare consumers want to be able to anticipate potential costs as accurately as possible. This is the dawn of “retail healthcare” when it comes to certain anticipated, nonemergency cases, and consumers have a growing array of resources…
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TV News Reports “New” Mobile RDC Check Fraud Scam
The ability of fraudsters to create an image of a check is not necessarily a new technique. What is newsworthy is accessibility.
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Winning Strategies for Value Based Reimbursements (VBR)
At the The 2019 OPEN MINDS Management Best Practices conference, Senior Associate Ken Carr provided a deep dive into that subject in his session entitled Are You Ready For Value-Based Reimbursement? An Executive Guide For Assessing Readiness In A Value-Based Market, which is summarized at the Open Minds website. During the session, Mr. Carr zeroed…
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Cryptocurrency vs. Real-Time Payments vs. Checks; Which Will Win?
When Facebook announced its Libra payment system, reactions were varied, to say the least. Can a gigantic company that cannot be trusted to safeguard our heretofore private information be ready to handle cryptocurrency? PYMNTS.com wonders if another giant company, Walmart, might have a better chance to succeed in the payments field, particularly in light of…
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5 Thoughts on AI Transforming RCM
Becker’s Hospital Review has looked over some recent studies and surveys to create a short and sweet list of insights regarding Artificial Intelligence and its role in transforming the Revenue Cycle Management process. The magic spot is the intersection between overcoming costs and creating a better, more effective patient experience. Yes, artificial intelligence implementation helps…
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Cloud Computing: Now a Standard FinTech Tool
It seems like not so long ago cloud computing was a nifty pie-in-the-sky idea (see what we did there?) that we’d eventually embrace along with personal jet packs and resorts on the moon. While the jet packs and moon lodgings are still off in the future, let’s make one thing clear: cloud computing is not…
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The Benefits of Automation at Scale
As reported at McKinsey.com, an analysis by the McKinsey Global Institute (covering more than 800 jobs and over 2,000 work activities) showed that: Globally, almost half the activities employees perform—which account for nearly USD 16 trillion in wages—could potentially be automated using existing proven technologies. Automation will transform far more jobs than it will eliminate.…
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Check Fraud: What It Can Teach Banks About the Future of Instant Payments
Pymnts.com features a podcast with Ingo Money CEO Drew Edwards and Karen Webster discussing the new risk of fraud related to remote mobile check deposits. “Mobile check capture fraud is now escalating so badly that some banks are thinking about shutting it off, because the losses just aren’t worth it,” Edwards states. It’s an interesting…
Read More OrboGraph Recognized as “Top 10 Financial Fraud Detection Solutions Providers 2019” by CFO Tech Outlook Magazine
Solutions address image-based, real-time fraud prevention and risk mitigation for check transactions Billerica, MA, August 19, 2019 – OrboGraph has been recognized by CFO Tech Outlook Magazine as one of the “Top 10 Financial Fraud Detection Solutions Providers” for 2019. OrboGraph is a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic and paper automation in recognition…
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Healthcare Payments Report Outlines Strategies of Payments Leaders
The US healthcare payments market is gigantic, and getting bigger. As seen in the chart above, Healthcare expenditure hit $3.65 trillion in 2018 (per projections from CMS) and this spending is only expected to go up and up (again, as seen in the ski-jump above). Does that mean cruise control for players in the healthcare…
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Fed Leaps Into Real-Time Payments
The Federal Reserve announced last week that it is working on a real-time payments system, the biggest infrastructure upgrade embraced by the government body since the ACH system went online in 1972. At a speech in Kansas City, Mo., Fed Governor Lael Brainard confirmed what the payments industry has long awaited, and she said the…
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Protecting Patient Privacy in EHRs
Medical processes — from intake to discharge and billing — benefit from both information-gathering and information-sharing. The industry is getting better and better at proliferating patient information where it is needed in order to assure proper assessment, treatment, and billing. And, as many of you know, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)…
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Cash as a Service
It may come as a surprise to those outside of the payments industry, but handling cash — real dollars and cents — is actually not an effortless “default mode” for retail businesses. In fact, as illustrated at RetailSupplyChains.com, handling cash is a complex, potentially expensive process: Where there is a cash, there is a cost,…
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Ten Physician Specialties That Generate Most Revenue for Hospitals
Our parents always told us to aspire to big things — “Be a doctor or a lawyer — they make lots of money.” We can’t speak for the legal profession (though they seem to be doing well), but a recent survey by physician staffing firm Merritt Hawkins assures us that the amount of revenue physicians…
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Checks: An Homage to the Memo Field
We’re sharing an interesting — and obviously Canadian — ode to “cheques” today. We’ll even maintain the north-of-the-border spelling. Do you know what is common between U.S. and Canadian companies? Both still write lots of checks! See what the Financial Post shares as a bit of esoteric insight: Why do many Canadian businesses insist on…
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7 Quotes From RCM Leaders, and AI/Blockchain’s “Potential” in Healthcare
From Hospital CFO Report comes words of wisdom from seven industry RCM leaders. The common threads? Heightened communication, empowerment of staff, and, of course, technology adoption and AI/machine learning. Check them out and see if any strike a chord with you and your organization! In the meantime, Fierce Healthcare points out that AI and blockchain…
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Ready For the Next Big ATM Operating-System?
Microsoft Corp. will stop supporting its Windows 7 operating system next January, which is a bellwether to both independent operators of ATM machines and large financial institutions — time to update! Digital Transactions reports that independent ATM operators seem to have the upper hand in the conversion race: Independent ATM owners’ decision to eschew Windows…
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Do Faster Payments Spur Healthcare Innovation?
As digital payment processes – including instant payments that bypass the need to craft and send checks – take hold in more and more business segments, the world of healthcare is beginning to take notice. The proposition: Can faster, easier, and more convenient payments (made possible by steadily advancing technology adoption) create opportunities for innovation…
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Compliance: The Future Depends on Using Data Better
In the banking industry, AML/KYC (Anti Money Laundering and Know Your Customer) was previously a very slow, methodic process — the government would put out their lists of sanctioned bad guys (hostile governments, drug kingpins, organized crime organizations and affiliates, etc.) and compliance teams would then carefully (and manually) check onboarding customers to make sure…
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3 Things Patients Want From Their Healthcare Financial Experience
At HITconsultant.net there is an visionary article about customer service in the healthcare sector by Joe Polaris, the Senior VP of Product and Technology at R1 RCM. He opens by drawing an intriguing comparison with booking airline tickets: To book an airline flight, for example, consumers simply open up an app or a website. At…
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Kiplinger Lists “The Best Bank for You, 2019”
In the third annual edition of its “The Best Bank for You” report, Kiplinger identifies top picks among national, regional, and internet banks, as well as credit unions, that offer the best combination of high rates, low fees, and a customer-friendly focus. Many of these institutions are customers of OrboGraph, so it’s is great to…
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Trump Executive Order Demands Healthcare Pricing Transparency
We’ve previously noted that the healthcare market is becoming more “retail-like” as consumers desire the ability to shop around for the best possible price tag in an environment dominated by high-deductible healthcare programs. On June 24th, President Trump signed an executive order that he says will make price comparisons easier in the healthcare marketplace, and…
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8 Percent of Payments Fraud Is Linked to Terrorism
An article from Digital Transactions finally quantifies the relationship between payments fraud and terrorism! Startling facts in this report show that, outside of pure fraud losses, there is a crucial national security component to fraud prevention. Information-security firm Terbium Labs, in its “The Next Generation of Criminal Financing: How Payment Fraud Funds Transnational Crime” report,…
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Patients Are Searching for Healthcare Information From Multiple – and Multiplying – Sources. Are You Ready?
OrboGraph’s development and deployment of our own Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning technologies called OrbNetAI and this year’s OrboGraph Technology Conference theme — 2019: The Year of AI and Modernization — make it clear that we are no strangers to the new frontiers opened up by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies in our sector.…
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AI: Safeguarding Privacy and Ethics
For all the upbeat and optimistic talk about Artificial Intelligence and its emerging role in the banking industry (not to mention healthcare), it’s certainly well worth taking the time to examine the issues of ethics and privacy as they relate to deployment of these new tools. David Lott, a payments risk expert in the Retail…
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AI: MIA In Most FI Fraud Departments?
PYMNTS.COM takes a look at the implementation of Artificial Intelligence solutions in Financial Institution fraud departments — or, rather, the stunning lack thereof: AI systems are unique, can process large volumes of data in real time and can “learn” to quickly identify suspicious financial activity. Yet, few FIs leverage this technology in their anti-fraud efforts…
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Healthcare Payments Firm InstaMed Bought by JP Morgan
CNBC reports that J.P. Morgan is paying more than $500 million for the medical payments technology firm InstaMed, a bold move into the $3.5 trillion market for U.S. health-care spending. It is the lender’s largest takeover since buying Bear Stearns and the bank assets of Washington Mutual in 2008, according to people with knowledge of…
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An Executive’s Guide to Deep Learning
Last week’s OrboGraph Conference theme in Charlotte, NC was 2019: The Year of AI and Modernization, and the attendees were treated to a variety of presentations by and interactions with experts on various aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) – – the Deep Learning topics that are of vital importance to any…
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Contentious Negotiations Highlight 2019 Payer & Provider Trends
HealthcareDive takes a look at changes and trends it anticipates in the coming year, mainly due to political ripples from Washington (for instance, a judge’s declaration that the Affordable Care Act is no longer constitutional) and emerging consumer preferences. Their snapshot of a few big trends for the payer and provider crowds to watch for…
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Payment Paradox: Millennials Using Checks
We’ve noted here before that there is a Millennial and sub-Millennial generation for whom checks are a bit of a novelty. Still, they will need to use checks more than they may expect or desire, so it’s important that they learn how to use them properly. Fraud is becoming easier and easier to overcome in…
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Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Uses Tools Similar to Healthcare EOB Processing
In news that is encouraging to millions of individuals and families affected by Alzheimer’s disease, Scientific American reportson researchers from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam who suggest AI and Machine Learning — already making waves in other industries — could eventually allow automated screening and assisted diagnosis of various forms of dementia, particularly…
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The OrboGraph Top 10 Reasons To…
The 2019 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference is nearly upon us. Hot off the presses, we’ve added new stars to the speaker line-up and have a Top 10 List of highlights. Check them out! Jason Schwabline, Alogent, Chief Strategy Officer – check capture innovations Robert “Bob” Frimet, RMF Consulting Group, Chief Rain Maker –…
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Compliance Standards for the MSB, and Why FI’s Should Bank Them
One reason Financial Institutions don’t jump in the MSB banking ring is the perception that MSB’s don’t have what it takes from a compliance perspective. Au contraire! As an MSB (Money Service Business), these entities have strict guidelines for compliance. Just like financial institutions, the MSB must have a written policy and procedure, on-going training,…
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REPORT: Health Providers Coming Up Short on Consumer Experience, Patient Payments
InstaMed has released a report that should act as a wakeup call for the health industry as a whole and health providers specifically. Even before you download the report PDF, there’s a striking chart that gets right down to business. Here’s an excerpt: Some additional relevant data from the report: 61% of patients said they…
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Banking the Under-Banked: Banks vs. Check Cashers (MSBs)
A Special Guest Host Blog Post by Bob Frimet, CAMS Millions of Americans depend on banking services each and every day, for everything from writing checks and paying bills to wiring money. But when was the last time you thought about the millions of “under-banked”? Where does that customer go? There are many reasons why…
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Overdraft Fees: More Than a Consumer Problem, But What About Fraud?
Bank fees have been in the news lately, particularly with the ramp up of 2020 presidential candidates. Not only is the aggregate number, $15B, in question, but so also is the issue of whether or not fees are unfairly targeting persons with lower incomes. From WashingtonExaminer.com: One of the Democrats vying to run against President…
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Survey Reveals Growing Provider Interest in RCM Tools
HealthCareDive reports on a Connance survey revealing that 70% of providers claim it takes more than a month to collect from patients, and a 2017 Advisory Board analysis found that the average 350-bed hospital lost up to $22 million in revenue due to revenue cycle issues. The “Deep Dive”: Providers are increasingly turning to payment…
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JP Morgan’s Dimon: “We Are Using AI and Machine Learning Techniques”
Pymnts.com reports on JP Morgan Jamie Dimon’s latest shareholder letter (which appeared on April 4) noting that AI and Machine Learning are mentioned prominently. Why is this important? Dimon’s shareholder letters are closely read and parsed for nuggets of insight regarding the economy, the investment climate, and even revelations about America’s standing in the world.…
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A Biomedical Use Case For AI & Deep Learning
Let’s face it — even as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions become more and more mainstream and attainable, they are multi-layered concepts that are not entirely intuitive. For the lay person, it could be about as close to trying to understand rocket science as we can get… (present company included!) A McKinsey Quarterly…
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SNL “Cheques” Parody Shows Checks are Alive and, Well…
Saturday Night Live debuted in 1975, meaning that if you were a member of the generation that watched the first seasons of the show, you’re in “the demographic that clings to checks.” according to the pundits. This past weekend, SNL enlightened viewers as to a few exaggerated benefits of “cheques” that we normally don’t promote…
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Study: EHRs Get Graded in Response to Work Environment
Penn Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes & Policy Research (CHOPR) did a study measuring nurse satisfaction with EHR systems and the “concurrent effects of EHR adoption level and the hospital work environment on usability and quality outcomes.” HealthData Management reports: What CHOPR found was that 25 percent of nurses reported dissatisfaction with their current EHRs…
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New Report: FIS Code Connect Named “Most Advanced API Strategy”
FIS was recently recognized by leading industry research and advisory firm Aite Group for its Code Connect application programming interface (API) gateway, naming it “Most Advanced API Strategy” in a newly released report. FisGlobal.com noted in an article: Code Connect provides a growing, constantly updated hub of APIs from both FIS and third-party developers for…
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3 Ways Blockchain Technologies Can Impact Healthcare Right Now
If you’re looking for a good, basic breakdown of blockchain technologies, head over to HealthData Management for a concise summary of the core technologies involved in blockchain, and why they are making such an an impact in the Healthcare industry. As we’ve discussed previously, blockchain is a ledger of records arranged in data batches called…
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Credit Unions and Community Banks: On Their Last Legs? Not Quite Yet
The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article headlined “The Problem for Small Town Banks: People Want High-Tech Services.” The gist of the article (available to subscribers only, alas) is that consumers in search of higher-tech interactions with financial institutions are bypassing smaller community banks in favor of “larger lenders offering online transactions.” The small…
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Haven: The Amazon-JPMorgan-Berkshire Healthcare Venture Has a Name
There’s been a lot of chatter and speculation as to what the much-discussed health care partnership created by powerhouses Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire is going to consist of and what it might be called. Drum roll please…It’s called HAVEN (and they even have a website, complete with a letter from Chief Executive Officer Atul Gawande,…
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What if Michael Cohen was Paid by ACH?
By now, images of the checks submitted into evidence by Michael Cohen as he testified before Congress have become ubiquitous. One of the checks, shown below, illustrates the power of data that is generated on a check. You see the courtesy and legal amounts, the date issued, maker/payer, payee and payee address, check number, and,…
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RCM in a VBR-Driven World
The Executive Briefing at OpenMinds.com discusses the ways Revenue Cycle Management must adjust in the VBR (value-based reimbursements) World. OPEN MINDS Senior Associate David E. Wawrzynek summed up the changes organizations need to make in order to survive — and succeed — with revenue cycle management in a value-based world: The revenue cycle management process…
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Still Early Enough to Plan 2019 Innovations
BAI Banking Strategies has assembled the wisdom of industry thought leaders in their new report: Decisions bankers need to make for 2019, a free download that will be worth your time to read as we make headway into 2019 and its new challenges, including the modernization priority that we hear about again and again. Venturing into the New Year, BAI has sought out its own thought…
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Medicare: Site-Neutral Payments on Tap for 2019
According to a final rule issued November 2, 2018, the longstanding Medicare policy in which healthcare payments varied based on the setting is about to expire. The rule came as part of the 2019 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) payment system rule by the U.S. Centers for Medicare…
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“Not a Water Slide”: Turning AI into ROI
BAI Banking Strategies hosts Daniel Faggella, founder and CEO of Emerj, on their newest podcast entitled TURNING AI INTO ROI. It’s an interesting and fast-moving 15 minutes. BAI had proclaimed AI their trend of the year for 2018, and show so signs of moving the title elsewhere for 2019. One of the salient points Mr.…
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“Lack of Urgency” Lags Healthcare Payments
A newly released research report from Business Insider Intelligence makes the case that, compared to other industries, the United State Healthcare industry has been slow to embrace new payment systems and processes. They point out, for instance, that approximately 77% of healthcare providers still use paper-based patient billing methods, according to an MGMA and Navicure…
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Fintech Firms Offering Checking Accounts – Not Yet
A year ago we noted that Amazon was looking at offering checking accounts, and more recently Abby Hayes at Doughroller has reiterated that the online giant is still interested. The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was/is chatting with various banks, including JP Morgan Chase & Co, about creating a branded online checking account. – Besides…
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HIMSS19: The Year of Artificial Intelligence
This year’s education schedule at the HIMSS Conference, held this week at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, is awash in AI-related material, notes HealthCare Innovation in a post this week. To name a few: Session MLAI03, “Keynote: Synergies Between Man and Machine”; Session MLAI04, “State of the Industry: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence…
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The Multi-Billion Dollar Fraud Problem, and How to Solve It
BAI Banking Strategies notes the seeming treadmill race to keep up with bank fraud in the US. The article’s author, David Vergara, head of security product marketing for OneSpan, notes: To address the challenges and stop the loss of billions of dollars to fraud each year, banks need a profoundly innovative approach that enables vast…
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As the Industry Modernizes, OrboGraph Responds
February is the perfect time to unveil an exciting refresh of content, messaging, and solutions on the OrboGraph website! We have observed major industry activities by large banks, small banks, healthcare providers and healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) companies to update antiquated, legacy systems. This Platform Modernization process is an opportunity for OrboGraph and its customers…
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Healthcare Revenue Cycle Careers: Prime for Millennials?
According to a report from staffing and recruiting firm LaSalle Network, which reviewed responses from 3,500 millennial revenue cycle professionals, ranging from managers to executives, Millennial healthcare professionals who work in the revenue cycle are largely satisfied with their employers. This is good news for an industry that will need to fill positions with young…
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New Year, New Bank Branch Strategies
BAI Banking Strategies looks forward to the new year with a podcast which includes a list of recommended strategies for bank branches. Their recommendations include: Fix your distribution strategy Become a data nerd Learn to use robotics and AI Partner with fintechs Invest in front-line tools Meanwhile, Bank News has advice for community bank branches…
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Deep Learning: How Will It Change Healthcare?
It’s become clear that leveraging AI and Deep Learning tech is the key to better patient care, while at the same time reducing costs and improving efficiencies — our primary missions in the healthcare field. But, what exactly is Deep Learning? Health IT Analytics offers a pretty concise overview of Deep Learning as it relates…
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Utilizing AI and Image Analysis to Limit Risk on Check Payments
Our own Vice President of Marketing, Joe Gregory, is featured in an article in Banking CIO Outlook magazine (you can read the story here). OrboGraph is proud to be featured as one of Banking CIO Outlook’s Top 10 KYC Solution Providers for 2018. Gregory notes that OrboGraph’s embrace of AI and Deep Learning technologies provides…
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The 2019 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference: “It’s the Platform, Stupid!”
As is his tradition, Dan Michelson, CEO of Strata Decision Technology, took his best shot at condensing the presentations he’d seen at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (last week in San Francisco). Over 40,000 players were in town from every corner of the healthcare ecosystem. However, if you want to hear the heartbeat of what’s happening at…
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Venmo Fraud Spike Strikes PayPal at Exactly the Wrong Time
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Venmo sustained a transaction loss rate of 0.40% in March, up from 0.25% in January, according to internal PayPal documents they reviewed. As reported in Digital Transactions: The losses sent Venmo’s first-quarter operating loss to approximately $40 million, a 40% increase over what PayPal had expected, the documents revealed.…
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A Look Back at 2018: Top 10 Healthcare IT News Articles
Welcome to 2019! We’ve experienced an eventful 2018 in Healthcare IT, and who better than Healthcare IT News to offer the Top 10 Healthcare IT News articles of 2018? As expected, the impact and rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning was covered in depth: Artificial intelligence and machine learning gained a greater presence, and we conducted…
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Seven Fintech Predictions for 2019
Bob Legters of American Banker goes out on a limb and makes the following predictions for the new year. Visit the link for his expansion of each prediction. Legters begins with specifying things he thinks we won’t see in 2019, followed by developments he believes will come to fruition before year’s end. How many do…
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Next 5 years in AI: Big Investment, Big Returns, Survey Says
Via Becker’s Hospital Review: OptumIQ Annual Survey on AI in Health Care reveals that, over the next five years, a healthcare organization will invest an average of $32.4 million on artificial intelligence. According to Optum: The inaugural OptumIQ Annual Survey on AI in Health Care indicates a tipping point in the adoption of AI in the industry,…
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Time for Banks to Ditch Silos for Omnichannel
This time of year we hear, more than ever, about how e-commerce has pushed retailers to the brink. Smart companies, however, survived and thrived, as Dawn Wotapk reports in Banking Strategies explains, by offering consumers as many consistent and seamless options as possible—letting them quickly jump between the offline and online worlds and learning about those consumers…
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Survey: 26% of Hospitals Without Effective Revenue Cycle Management System
You read that right: About a quarter of all US hospitals — 26% — do not have an effective healthcare revenue cycle management solution in place, according to a new Black Book survey. According to RevCycle Intelligence, Black Book surveyed over 4,640 individuals from 522 hospitals and healthcare delivery networks regarding their use of 165 revenue…
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Introducing the US Faster Payments Council
The Federal Reserve, following through on plans disclosed earlier this year, formally unveiled the U.S. Faster Payments Council, an industry group charged with collaborating to spur the adoption of faster payments and identify market opportunities. According to DigitalTransactions.net: The 22 inaugural members range from retailing giant Walmart Inc. to Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. to…
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Patient Leakage Represents a 10% Revenue Loss to Healthcare Facilities
RevCycle Intelligence reports on a new survey that healthcare organizations are losing revenue because they are failing to properly manage referrals and patient leakage. Some of the report’s findings: There’s a gap between priority and action. Some 87% of healthcare executives say patient leakage is a high priority, but 23% don’t track leakage and 20% don’t…
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Fortune Magazine: Credit Card Chips Not Stopping Fraud, Survey Says
Fortune Magazine is not sold on chip-enables credit cards as the fraud-stopper the tech promised. New chip-enabled credit cards, which were rolled out to U.S. consumers starting in 2015, were supposed to put an end to rampant credit card fraud. So much for that. A new report from the research firm Gemini Advisory has…
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Beware of Inter-Related Use Cases of Payments and Check Fraud
The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) reports in its annual study of payments fraud risks and realities that nearly 8 in 10 U.S. organizations were targets of payments fraud in 2017. What’s the best way to protect your organization? US Bank has some solid tips: Provide comprehensive training: All employees should receive training to help them…
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Syncing Revenue Cycle & Patient Experience
In today’s “retail medical market” with heightened RCM patient focus, improving a patient’s financial experience is a key to healthcare revenue cycle management success, according to the Senior Regional Director of Revenue Cycle at Ascension Healthcare. RevCycleIntelligence.com reports that the ability to implement self-service technology and give accurate price estimates is key to improving the patient experience…
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Automation & Tech Are Keys to Relevance for Banks
BankNews.com reports on a study that lends considerable weight to the concept of upgrading technology in the retail bank space: According to the 2018 Payments Industry Report from Sydney, Australia-based Accuity, the majority of financial institutions and payments providers provide customers with the validation of key payments data elements prior to remittance, and many have…
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AI & Healthcare: 5 Terms to Learn
Artificial intelligence is making itself invaluable in a variety of industries, including healthcare. With this in mind, Becker’s Health IT and CIO Report offers five useful terms to add to your AI playbook: Artificial intelligence: Intelligent behaviors commonly associated with humans but exhibited by machines and applied to tasks like problem-solving, automatically completing forms or…
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Influence the OrboGraph Technology Conference Agenda!
Did you catch the big news last week? OrboGraph has officially launched the registration for the 2019 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference. The conference will be held on May 20-21, 2019, at the Charlotte Marriott City Center. What to expect: At the 2018 Conference, we focused on the introduction of artificial intelligence and deep learning…
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Making Payments Faster: The Fed is All Ears
PYMNTS.com reports on the Federal Reserve’s efforts to gather input on making payments faster across all channels. Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said, in remarks made on Oct. 3rd., that the Federal Reserve’s infrastructure underpinning payments could use a bit of modernization in a bid to support fast payments “for all.” Brainard, speaking in Chicago at the Fed…
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EHR Data: Protect and Serve!
Results of a recent a recent JAMA study as reported in EHR Intelligence reveal that a disturbing amount of hospitals fail to comply with federal and state regulations for patient EHR and paper health records requests. This is especially damaging in today’s healthcare retail climate, where patients understandably want to know what their costs are. Researchers made…
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Check Fraud: Protect the Millennials!
Persons who are older than 30 may feel the urge to gloat about this: Millennials – – the cohort, according to the Pew Research Center, born between the years 1981 and 1996, and who watch with glee as older folks struggle with social media and Ubers – – are currently the primary target when it…
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Study: Almost One-Third of Hospitals Lack Revenue Cycle Tech or Automated Remittance Posting
A study from Eliciting Insights shows that, while adoption of revenue cycle technology is brisk, some medical facilities are hesitant to adopt automated remittance posting in spite of its proven ability to solidify the bottom line in challenging times. Based on survey responses from 179 hospital revenue cycle executives, here are some takeaways as reported on Becker’s Hospital CFO…
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Check Fraud: The Corporate World Provides a Big Target
While the consumer “civilian” world has pretty much learned and accepted the “don’t take checks from strangers” rule, the corporate world is both slow to adopt that guideline — and often unable to. This is due to the fact that suppliers like the “float” advantage they enjoy with check payments. (“We paid you on Tuesday…
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The Role of a Revenue Cycle Management Specialist Has Evolved
As this Hospital CFO Report post illustrates, RCM Management job openings are available all over the country. But what are the new challenges that a Revenue Cycle Management Specialist face in the evolving world of medical billing? One emerging area of focus is a firm grasp of The Medicare National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI; also known…
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Economics of AI Swing Dramatically In Favor of Business
A new article about AI on the Which 50 website cites a recent report from McKinsey Global Institute that makes two vital points about Artificial Intelligence as a tool: The AI revolution is no longer in its infancy The main economic impact of artificial intelligence hasn’t yet arrived That’s what many industry pundits like to call…
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Six Fresh RCM Tips Focused on the Patient
Becker’s Hospital Review offers these hot-off-the-presses Revenue Cycle Management Tips: 1. Lyman Sornberger, president and CEO of consulting firm Lyman Health Care Solutions, said there are various best practices hospitals can use to maximize insurance collections. He recommended that hospitals “capture insurance coverage at the benefit level” and “invest in pre-service validation with the patient…
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Banks Lose $2.92 per Defrauded Dollar
Is it important for financial institutions to deploy the best possible tools to fight fraud? Consider this: According to LexisNexis Risk Solutions in its 2018 True Cost of Fraud study for the financial-services sector, for every dollar of fraud a financial institution absorbs, it drains an additional $2.92 in associated costs — that’s up 9% from…
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) Steps Up in Healthcare
An article produced by Intel outlines the ways Artificial Intelligence — AI — solutions can be deployed while using an organization’s existing technological infrastructure. The result is maximum gain with minimum expense and downtime. Watch this video for an interesting perspective on AI utilization. Intel’s article outlines three key areas where enterprises are experimenting with AI…
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Optimizing Check Payments for Fundraising
Getting the money is always a challenge with fund raising, as is reconciliation and record keeping. Additionally, it’s beneficial to communicate to the individuals who donate, because they are interested in your program and a great “target market” for the next fundraising effort. Very often, contributions are solicited via social media, allowing contributors to go…
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Rural Hospital RCM Challenges Require Straight-Through Processing
In an environment where value-based reimbursement performance presents challenges to even the most “metropolitan” of hospitals and healthcare facilities, rural hospitals find themselves facing challenges heightened by their specific set of circumstances. As RevCycleIntelligence reports: Despite serving as a critical healthcare safety net for millions of patients, many rural hospitals are constantly on the brink…
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Here Are 5 Reasons to Re-Think Remote Cash Capture
While steadily declining in overall usage, cash remains “as relevant in retail as it has ever been,” according to an article by Bob Meara, Senior Analyst with Celent, in an article previewing his presentation at November’s AFP 2018, “Fewer Cash Receipts Still Mean Big Retail Challenges.” RCC (Remote Cash Capture) is noteworthy for the collaborative service delivery required to…
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10 Things to Know About the CMS’s Proposed Outpatient Payment Rule
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released its 2019 Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule on July 25th, which calls for site-neutral payments and would make changes to the 340B program. For the adventurous, a 760-page explanation is here. For the rest of us, Becker’s Hospital CFP Report offers 10 things to know about the…
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Millennials Become Targets…for Check Fraud
There are many reasons for the resilience of checks (including the small- and mid-sized businesses that rely on the paper check’s “float” for accounting purposes), but one important factor has been fear of fraud and security risks in newer digital transactions. Digital transactions are indeed growing at a rapid rate — particularly among millennials, many…
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AMA Adds Connected Health CPT Codes; Will It Yield More Revenues?
The American Medical Association (AMA) updated the Current Procedural Terminology code set (CPT codes) in 2019 to include new codes for connected health services in an effort to encourage the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to pay for the services. According to RevCycleIntelligence.com: The 2019 CPT code set contains 335 changes that will…
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Modernizing Legacy Technology; A Path to Success
Alfredo Alvarez, a principal at Liberty Advisor Group, writes in his article how modernizing legacy technology wins the digital customer: Nimble new entrants and rapidly increasing customer expectations for digital products and services continue to disrupt financial services firms. In response, financial services organizations have made significant investments in agile development and DevOps (development and…
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Value-Based Payments See Momentum – Electronic Payments Not So Much
We’ve made note of the shrinking usage of fee-for-service models in healthcare billing ecosystems, and now it looks as though the emergent model, value-based payments, is not only growing in deployment but actually delivering benefits to both sides of the transactional equation. As explained by RevCycleIntelligence.com: Value-based care is a form of reimbursement that ties payments…
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USA Today Article “Endorses” Endorsements!
Last week, USA TODAY published a consumer-focused article explaining new deposit requirements from a number of banks: Depositors must now include the phrase “For Mobile Deposit Only” underneath their signature on all checks deposited using mobile apps. Some banks are also suggesting you add “For Mobile Deposit Only at (Bank Name)” or “For (BANK NAME) Mobile Deposit…
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Direct Patient Benefits via EHR
One of the positive repercussions of wider adoption of Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) platforms is the accelerated implementation of sophisticated Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology (back in 2013 we noted that the HITECH Act had stimulated the adoption of EHR and Health Information Exchange (HIE) solutions). EHR Intelligence reports that the wider adoption of electronic health…
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Blockchain – Overhyped or Colossal Potential?
Various applications of blockchain technologies have been hyped and praised, and nearly everywhere you look, there is a company or start-up touting the benefits of the tech. Auditing and tax-services firm Deloitte conducted a survey called Breaking Blockchain Open wherein several aspects of blockchain were covered. In their analysis, Ambcrypto.com points out that, while 84% of…
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A Better Space Makes for Better Banking
We’ve talked recently about how banks are, to a greater and greater extent, making significant investments in technology to make transactions both more convenient and more secure for their customers/members. But another path to maintaining and, indeed, growing a loyal customer base in the age of remote deposit capture via mobile device — and an…
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Riding the (Paper) Storm Out
I wonder how many people reading this are old enough to start bobbing their head to the vintage FM radio reference in the title? Classic rock preferences aside (give it up for REO Speedwagon!), all of us can certainly appreciate a well-expressed exploration of remittance electronification. That’s why we recommend that you run, don’t walk…
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Deep Trends & Deep Learning in Banking & Payments
Payments 3.0 columnist George Warfel signs off of his last column for the site by noting what he considers deep trends to watch in banking and payments. One particular point he makes is something we’ve seen borne out again and again as cleverly-named payments technology brands appear and then either disappear or team with more established…
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Blockchain: Turbocharging Healthcare?
A new article in Healthcare IT Insights takes a deep dive into blockchain technology and its impact on healthcare components including health payments and record keeping: Because blockchain enables both data security and data transparency, it has been presented as a solution to many of healthcare’s most vexing problems – data-interoperability, medication adherence, physician satisfaction,…
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How Social Media Turned Wells Fargo’s Mobile RDC Speed Bump Into a PR Issue
Hats off to Wells Fargo for taking a position which protects themselves and their clients against fraud losses…even if there are bumps along the way. Sometimes risk mitigation has a price in terms of review processes, funds availability or customer service for a select few. In an effort to protect itself and clients in light of…
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Why Read RemoteDepositCapture.com’s Guide to Restrictive Indorsements
If you already know the difference between “indorsement” and “endorsement,” you’re the kind of professional who will benefit from the newly-released RemoteDepositCapture.com’s Guide to Restrictive Indorsements, available to purchase at their website. The report is authored by John Leekley, founder and CEO of RemoteDepositCapture.com, who is widely regarded as the leading authority on all things…
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4 Revenue Cycle Management Tips
Becker’s Hospital CFO Report recently gathered and posted 4 revenue cycle management tips that — no surprise — emphasize many of the themes we concentrate on the most: Investment in a robust claim denials program. Machine learning to scrub claims. Great emphasis on security. Addressing the new consumerism in healthcare by making sure persons “shopping” for healthcare…
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Corporate Banking Customers Stick With Checks – Can You Guess Why?
A survey released last week by JPMorgan Chase revealed that, while a majority of U.S. business leaders (owners, managers, and executives) prefer using digital banking, less than half of them have plans to increase their use of online banking products and services! The reason? Cybersecurity concerns! While checks are certainly not immune from fraud and hacking,…
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5 Common Patient Collections Mistakes – Are You Guilty of One or More?
Becker’s ASC Review offers a concise guide to some of the most common patient collections mistakes made by Healthcare providers. In a healthcare environment that is becoming more and more “retail” and dependent upon the patient’s financial responsibility, it’s critical to lock down the basics of patient billing and collections, from beginning to end. Patients…
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How to Write a Check in 2018 – and the Implications
Admit it – you thought everyone knows the basics of check writing, and figured that the younger generation is not using checks. So who cares? Well, you might think this is the case, but there are fresh ideas in this article at the street.com including safeguards against check fraud, which, according to the ABA Deposit Fraud Study, saw…
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Putting Faces to the Names – Check Out Our New Video
Though many of us at OrboGraph like to joke that we have great faces for radio, we’re nonetheless pleased to introduce a new video that introduces our core personnel — putting faces to names you may be very familiar with. Making the video represented an excellent and enjoyable opportunity to convey the various facets of…
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Patients Owe More – Education Needed For Collections
Pressure will continue to rise on Revenue Cycle Management services and technologies as the amount patients owe after an insurance settlement continues to rise as well, according to an article at Health Data Management. An analysis by TransUnion Healthcare, released in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, found that patients…
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20 UCC Provisions Every Banker Should Know
The National Check Fraud Center has a no-nonsense, word-dense list of 20 UCC Provisions Every Banker Should Know. Go “check” out that link – – looks pretty daunting, doesn’t it? Author Mary Beth Guard manages to keep it light, though, even in some of the longer explanations: Section 4-209: Are you familiar with the encoding warranty? A…
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The Promises of AI & Advanced Analytics
Healthcare IT News reports communicates an AI and analytics path for healthcare organizations, but as you read, there is a bit of a paradox at work… Expect next-generation revenue cycle management systems to boast quite advanced analytics, said Kellye Sherbet, president of RCM services at Aprima Medical Software, which markets EHR, practice management and revenue…
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Digital Wallets: Not All “Independence Days” Take Hold….
In the spirit of Independence Day, let’s take a look at an article from PaymentsSource.com that explores various attempts to become “independent from checks, cash, and cards.” Their list includes venerable “we’re going all-digital” efforts like Venmo, Green Dot, and even PayPal – – all have sought to declare independence from plastic cards and checks,…
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OrboGraph Announces New Restrictive Endorsement Validation as Reg CC Rule Changes Go into Effect
Validation designed to address RDC indemnity claims for duplicate items from multiple workflows Billerica, MA, July 3, 2018 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, as well as healthcare revenue cycle management, announces the planned release…
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OrboGraph to Highlight Successes of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning Technology at HFMA Annual Conference
Accuracy Levels Exceed 99.9% for Healthcare Payments and Remittances Las Vegas, NV, HFMA ANI Conference, June 25, 2018 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, announces that the…
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Why Checks Are Still Golden For High-Risk Sellers
According to Thomas Skala, chief executive officer and president of telecommunications and payments company Genie Gateway, a mitigated risk of chargebacks makes checks the best path for high-risk sellers. High-risk sellers can include, for example, product repair companies if a customer is unhappy with a repair result; or the travel industry, in which buyers can chargeback travel…
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2018 Conference Highlights: Achieving Payment/Remittance Electronification in Healthcare
At our 2018 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference in Nashville, TN, Robert Bowman, CORE Director at CAQH; Tim McPherson, VP of Strategic Alliance at OrboGraph; and Bryan Bruton, Technology Business Executive at OrboGraph, delivered a presentation exploring issues surrounding adoption of payment and remittance electrification in the healthcare space – – something we obviously take…
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2018 Conference Highlights: Check Fraud and Payment Risk
Continuing our look at some of the highlights from our 2018 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference in Nashville, TN, this time with information from a presentation entitled “Check Fraud and Payment Risk Industry Update and Technology Advancements,” presented by Joe Gregory, our own VP of Marketing; Yaron Katzir, who is Orbograph’s Director of Product Management for…
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2018 Conference Highlights: Survey Results for Reg CC Readiness
We’re continuing our look at some of the highlights from our 2018 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference in Nashville, TN, via a presentation by Paul A. Carrubba, Partner at Adams and Reese LLP, and John Leekley, Founder & CEO, RemoteDepositCapture.com, entitled “Best Practices for July 2018 Reg CC Changes.” After Paul Carrubba’s overview of Reg CC Amendments that…
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2018 Conference Highlight: Payment Reconciliation Realities
One of many highlights from our 2018 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference in Nashville, TN, was Wayne Koch’s presentation exploring The Future of Healthcare Payments. We’ve borrowed the great visual metaphor that Koch used in his presentation: Very often, the amount of reconciled and unreconciled payments that current systems recognize are merely the tip of…
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Healthcare Layoffs Highlight New Industry Realities
We’ve talked in this space about the wave of healthcare consumerism and “value shopping” that is becoming the new industry reality. Now we’re seeing some of the more dramatic results of that transition. General Hospital of Lowell, Massachusetts, laid off 29 managers and non-clinical administrative employees in an effort to cut expenses, reports The Lowell…
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FRAUD: 10 Reasons It Will Never Go Away
If there are persons in executive positions out there — particularly in the world of payments — who feel that we are escalating toward a golden age where fraud will all but be eliminated and all of our sophisticated tools and controls can be abandoned, they are not going to want to hear what Dr. Patrick…
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Podcast: The Vision of OrboGraph, Check and Healthcare Payments in 19 Minutes
For an invigorating Memorial Day drive, we invite you to take 19 minutes to enjoy the OrboGraph Podcast named, “The Foundation and Vision”; a conversation with OrboGraph’s co-president, Barry Cohen, and vice president of marketing, Joe Gregory. Promising to be the best podcast OrboGraph has produced (yes, it is our first), the podcast covers…
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Message to Small Banks: Tech is a SOLUTION, not a PROBLEM
Small banks are at a crossroads: adopt new technologies or face the possibility of shutting the doors. According to Americanbanker.com: For community banks in highly competitive markets, service with a personal touch can be a differentiator to win and keep customers. But when legacy technology hampers the customer experience, all the cups of coffee in…
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OrboGraph Inducts Five New Entrants into Hall of Fame
OrbyAwards presented to high impact business partners and industry visionary Vijay Balakrishnan Billerica, MA, May 23, 2018 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, awarded the coveted OrbyAward…
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Healthcare Price Transparency Sparks Concerns
A follow-up to last week’s post concerning healthcare is getting more and more “retail” — in response to Senators Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Chuck Grassley (R-IW), Tom Carper (D-DE), Todd Young (R-IN), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) unveiling their intention to launch a healthcare price and quality information transparency initiative (The Senators asked the American…
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Zelle: A Bumpy Ride Toward Ubiquity?
According to American Banker, the bank-led person-to-person payment network Zelle is making progress, but having growing pains. Banks and consumers have learned a handful of truths — good and bad — about the network as it copes with a number of challenges including fraud threats, growing demand, as well as technical and enrollment issues. Here is…
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B2B Payments Friction: Rethinking the Role of Check
Let’s be frank: paper checks present a challenge to anyone in the accounts payable space. But let’s be equally realistic: checks continue to make up about half of the supplier payments volume. B2B payments disruptors now have a choice when designing and deploying technology: Will they use that tech to make paper checks less friction-filled, or entice…
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OrboGraph Releases Version 1.5 of OrboAnywhere for Platform Modernization of Check Processing and Fraud Prevention
Enhanced scalability and targeted use cases add incremental justification to industry modernization efforts Billerica, MA, May 2, 2018 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, announces the…
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Healthcare is Getting More and More “Retail.” Are You Ready?
While “Healthcare Consumerism” is a trend we’ve made note of previously, you’re probably aware that the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) is requiring hospitals to post a list of their standard charges online — just the beginning of the push for increased healthcare price transparency, according to CMS’s Administrator Seema Verma. Think about the…
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For Regionals to Catch Up to Big Banks, Time to Modernize
There is a trend in the wind, according to AmericanBanker.com: Over the past few days, midsize banks — such as Comerica, Commerce Bancshares and M&T Bank — have reported notable declines in total deposits, with M&T, in particular, reporting a 6% drop from a year earlier. Executives have offered a number of reasons why, saying…
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Tax Refund Season Means Jump in Medical Payments
A report from JP Morgan Chase Institute (JPMorgan is part of a new healthcare venture announced with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway) notes that many Americans wait for their tax refund to make payments against medical bills. The report looked at 1.2 million American households in different income and demographic groups that received tax refunds in 2016,…
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“Sneak Preview” of the 2018 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference Webinar
On April 12 & 17, 2018, OrboGraph’s own Joe Gregory, VP of Marketing, gave a 20-minute, “sneak preview” of the 2018 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference. Topics included: The OrboGraph Experience Reasons why we selected Nashville and a quick view of the Union Station Hotel Introduction to our all-star line up of speakers Detailed…
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Corporate Clients See Payments Fraud on the Upswing, Says AFP: Modernization Needed
The 2018 AFP Payments Fraud Survey, underwritten by J.P. Morgan, has some alarming fraud news for corporate clients and the treasury departments of financial institutions. Overall payments fraud reached a new peak in 2017, after experiencing a downswing earlier in the decade. A record 78% of all organizations were hit by payments fraud last year,…
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OrboGraph Announces Impressive Speaker Lineup for 2018 Healthcare and Check Payments Technology Conference
Represented companies include: The Clearing House, Change Healthcare, IBM, CAQH and Deluxe Billerica, MA, April 16, 2018 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, announces a star-studded…
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Application and Platform Modernization Surges
A newly released report reveals that cloud computing advances are a driving force for large enterprises — including, of course, those in the health care and retail banking segments — to modernize their application platforms in spite of large investments they may have made previously in legacy systems. Large enterprises have dedicated in-house IT resources,…
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RemoteDepositCapture.com Is At It Again!
RemoteDepositCapture.com creates one featured poll question per month on RDC-related topics. If you’re at all interested in check processing [who wouldn’t be, right?], then we invite you to visit their site and register your input. While you’re there, it’s well worth signing up for their newsletter so you can get poll results regularly. This month’s featured…
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“Healthcare Consumerism” – Price Transparency Matters!
A new brief from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy makes it clear that providers should prep their practices for a far more “retail” model – – the rise and permanence of healthcare consumerism. Anaeze C. Offodile, II, MD, MPH, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Vivian Ho, PhD, the James…
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Consumer Mobile RDC Limits Swing Upward at Financial Institutions
A RemoteDepositCapture.com poll reveals that the limits banks and credit unions place on the size of consumer checks eligible for depositing via mobile RDC are rising steadily. In fact, the past year has seen the number of financial institutions with standard per-item deposit limits above $5,000 for consumer mobile deposit customers growing by nearly 50%, according to the…
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Healthcare and Cybersecurity – A Reminder via Facebook to Remain Vigilant
It shouldn’t take news of a massive data breach on Facebook to remind people in all industries – – particularly healthcare – – that we must remain absolutely vigilant when it comes to security and privacy requirements. As Rosemary McKenna states in her blog at Lexology: Nary a week goes by without news of a data…
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RemoteDepositCapture.com Launches Reg CC Survey; Webinar to Follow
On July 1st, 2018, Amendments to Federal Reserve Regulation CC take effect. Many financial institutions are taking a passive approach to these very important changes. Others are serious about making changes to their deposit agreements and are changing workflows to modernize their risk and fraud practices. What’s your position on these changes? The amendment creates…
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The “Uncertain” Future of Healthcare
If there has been a common term that pops up throughout the recent past in the healthcare sector, it is uncertainty. The word “uncertainty” pops up in the very first sentence of this comprehensive article by Shubham Singhal, Brian Latko, and Carlos Pardo Martin of McKinsey & Company. It’s a deep dive and the article is worth…
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Who’s Safe From Amazon Infiltration – Not Even CHECKS?
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that Amazon may be looking at entering the checking account game. Sanvada reports online for those who do not subscribe to the WSJ: A report from the Wall Street Journal has claimed that the retail giant is working on what it calls a “hybrid-type checking account” designed for…
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“The Experience” of an OrboGraph Conference
Have you heard about “the experience” of an OrboGraph conference? The 2018 Healthcare and Check Payment Technology Conference is again shaping up to be an amazing event. This year, we are hosting the conference on May 7th-9th, 2018, at the Union Station Hotel in Nashville, TN. For a glimpse into the past, see videos and photos from our…
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5 Strategies to Grow Your Organization’s Financial Muscle
Value-based health care is around the corner — or are we supposed to be already living it? The uncertainly in the health care world today has caused many healthcare organizations to slow or stall their efforts to prepare for risk-based medicine. A Deloitte survey found more than 80 percent of physicians still received compensation under fee-for-service…
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Are Mid-Sized FIs Failing To Climb The Innovation Curve?
Is your financial institution ready for payment innovation? The Innovation Readiness Playbook from PYMNTS.COM surveyed US financial institutions and created a gem for strategic and tactical considerations. Like many surveys, you can take a positive or negative spin on the data and critique the questions. For example: Is this a wake-up call to mid-sized financial institutions that…
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Are You a Revenue Cycle Hero?
eBooks are fun! Check out Becker’s Hospital Review’s eBook “The Revenue Hero’s Guide to Revenue Cycle Success.” Revenue cycle leaders are the unsung heroes of every healthcare organization. Optimizing revenue cycle management requires that you deliver super hero level effort each day, to achieve the financial results necessary to fund the clinical mission. The purpose of…
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The End of Free Checking as We Know It?
You’ve probably seen the headlines: Bank of America ends free checking option, causing customer uproar Bank of America Is Eliminating a Popular Free Checking Account A major bank eliminates free checking – – a blow to the lower income consumer who depends on checks and checking accounts, right? Would it spur industry-wide changes, similar to…
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Trump’s 2019 Budget: 15 Healthcare Takeaways
No matter which side of the aisle you reside, healthcare professionals are looking at a mixed bag of good, bad, and indifferent in the budget blueprint put forward by the administration. Becker’s Hospital CFO Report has an analysis of healthcare impacts in the proposed budget. Here’s the list; visit their site for insights and see…
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“The Future of Payments – Get Ready for a Wild Ride”
Let’s get crazy! OK, maybe a podcast from BAI Banking Strategies isn’t crazy, crazy, but if you are into payments, this could be the best 10-15 minutes of the year! Managing editor Lou Carlozo speaks with Tommy Marshal, FinTech Lead for North America at Accenture about their new payments report entitled Driving the Future of Payments: 10 Mega…
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“I just wait for the letter from the collection agency — then I know I should pay.”
David Krause, Vice President of the Business Improvement Group at Anthem, knows the medical billing system in America is broken because he’s heard variations of the following too many times: “I just wait for the letter from the collection agency — then I know I should pay.” Consumers don’t get the care they need, rises…
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OrboGraph Highlighted in “Top 10 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Solution Providers to Watch in 2018” by The TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
Check and healthcare payments ripe for adoption of new technologies. Billerica, MA, February 15, 2018 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic and paper automation leveraging recognition technologies, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing and healthcare revenue cycle markets, was recently highlighted in the February edition of The…
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Now Checks Are Causing Hardships?
The “death” of the check is still way behind schedule, according to many organizations that predicted the end of paper checks many years ago. We keep reporting that checks are still popular when they were supposed to have been dwindling years ago. (That’s the boring part of the post) The latest installment in PYMNTS’ Kill…
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OrboGraph Embraces AI
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES features an article examining OrboGraph’s utilization of AI technologies and the effect it’s had the check and healthcare lines of the business. With OrboGraph’s main focus on automating payments, the company looks at AI as a means to improve efficiencies into the entire payment mix and to facilitate electronification of payments, which ultimately…
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Report: Big Revenue Cycle Investments for Services Ahead
A new report from Future Market Insights has predicted that the global market for healthcare revenue cycle management software will reach $ 43.3 billion by the end of 2022. The global healthcare revenue cycle management software market is projected to soar at a compound annual growth rate of 6.9 percent during the 2017-2022 forecast period. Healthcare IT News analyzes…
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Digital, Branch and Call Center Metrics; Are We Making Progress?
Cornerstone Advisors recently released their 2017 Cornerstone Performance Report for Banks. On the heels of this report, Gonzo Banker website offers their insight into how banks’ operational performance has changed over the past 10 years based on the information contained in the report. There’s a long list of metrics that have changed dramatically, but they narrowed it to 10…
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Medical Records on Your Apple iPhone: Will It Help the Patient Experience?
Mainstream technology is beginning to create patient-doctor relationships that are unprecedented. CNBC reports that Apple is moving deeper into healthcare with a service that lets users easily view their medical records. Ultimately, “we’re hoping to enable richer conversations between doctor and patient,” said Sumbul Desai, Apple’s digital health lead who’s also a physician and medical researcher…
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FED Study Shows Underutilized Mobile Capabilities, RDC Stays Strong
The Financial Brand website summary of mobile banking report shows a disappointing rate of mobile payment and payment adoption among consumers. Consumer enrollment in mobile banking services is growing as more individuals rely on their mobile phones for access to financial services. While growing, the total enrollment and usage percentages for most organizations still falls short…
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Top 12 Takeaways from the 2018 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference
It’s an invitation-only look into the crystal ball. The 2018 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference took place last week in San Francisco, with over 20 healthcare systems represented and offering presentations, including Advocate Health Care, Aurora Health Care, Baylor Scott & White Health, Catholic Health Initiatives, Geisinger Health System, Hospital for Special Surgery, Intermountain Healthcare, Mercy…
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Restrictive Endorsements a Big Part of Regulation CC Changes
The Expedited Funds Availability Act (EFAA) and the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21 Act), announced in 2014, will have amendments effective July 1, 2018. We learn this via the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) publishing in the Federal Register final amendments to Regulation CC (Availability of Funds and Collection of Checks). These amendments contain…
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Visionary Aite Predicts Payments Evolution
A new year means new opportunities, and Aite Group’s Top 10 Trends Report tells us to be ready for changes in 2018! It looks to be an amazing year of challenges for retail banking payments as well as wholesale banking. Note: Both sites also feature a link to their Top 10 Trends in Financial Services, 2018 summary…
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The Reappearing Check: Maintaining the Magic in 2018
An interesting new white paper from Digital Check explores the expected demise of paper checks – – and how, as if by magic, the “expected” suddenly did not occur. We all know the drill: 50 billion checks written in the 90s; 20 billion checks written in 2013 – – – do the math, and at…
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2018 Predictions: Tech-Human Interaction is the Future
Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Innovation Leadership (GIL) briefing titled, “Global Healthcare Market Key Predictions for 2018,” was held on December 13, 2017, and their experts predicted another year of big disruptions, transformations, and innovations as the healthcare industry — really, in health care??? As reported at HospiMedica.com: Human-machine collaboration will bridge the gap between artificial intelligence…
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Will Santa Claus Take Cryptocurrency?
It was only a few weeks ago that we reported that Bitcoin is trading on Wall Street in the futures market, and all of the persons who’d jumped on that train early were being hailed as forward-thinking geniuses. In a bit of an anti-holiday spirit message (well – they mention Santa at one point), Huffington Post…
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Root Cause Analysis Is the Foundation to Denied Claim Analysis
Of course, the best way to handle claim denials is to prevent them in the first place. That’s why this recent list of denial prevention strategies from Becker’s is something no denial manager should miss. We believe though that it has a problem. Boiling down denials to a list like this obscures the fact that…
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These “Far-Out” Denials Can Cause Real Audit Problems
You might have heard of some of these “far-out” denials from an HME NewsPoll, but they really are worth a review… …a Medicare prescription denied because it was “written by a girl.” …an agency had a beneficiary “listed as dead, then alive, then dead again.” …multiple providers receiving denials for wheelchairs intended for amputees and…
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ONC and Innovation
The 2017 ONC Annual Meeting, held November 30th to December 1st in Washington DC, was all about healthcare interoperability and health IT usability this year. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is organizationally located within the Office of the Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and leads the…
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Mobile Remote Capture Race – Who’s Winning?
One reason check volume has stabilized is due to the marriage of the “tech evolution in check capture” and old-school paper…made possible by remote capture apps that are offered by nearly every major bank. The 2016 Mobile Deposit Benchmark Report, released Sept. 14 and put together by Futurion, a fintech and digital commerce research firm, makes a strong…
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Find Out Where You Stand Today on This Controversial DME Prior Authorization Rule
Becker’s announcement on CMS’ DME prior authorization rule came a while back, but CMS’ stance on prior authorization is likely still causing denial issues for your facility today. The Backstory Just as 2016 was about to round the corner, CMS issued a rule requiring prior authorization before Medicare would reimburse DME that had been found…
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A Revenue Cycle Turnaround Case Study
We recommend you buy a Starbucks coffee and set aside an hour to watch the “Coffee With Coker” presentation entitled “Revenue Cycle Turnaround: Rebuilding for an Advanced ROI – A Case Study,” which is archived here. Senior Vice President of Coker Group Jeff Gorke takes us through the components and challenges of building and maintaining…
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Faster Payments May Not Be Fast Enough…To Market
They are called the Faster Payments Task Force. They’ve chronicled 252 meetings and teleconferences, 19 surveys and votes, and 120,000 estimated hours of work, the chronological equivalent of 13.7 years. The output is two impressive strategic reports totaling 126 pages, part one released a year ago this month, part two in July. And in retrospect, that…
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OrboGraph Featured in CIO Applications Magazine as Top 25 Banking Technology Solution Provider
OrboAnywhere offers banks straight-through processing automation as well as risk/fraud prevention Billerica, MA, December 11, 2017 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation leveraging recognition technologies, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing and healthcare revenue cycle markets, was recently featured in the November edition of CIO Applications…
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Telemedicine’s Newest Threat. DME Denials?
A recent report from Grand View Research reveals a potentially hidden threat to telemedicine programs. We’re all aware that chronic disease is a growing problem around the world, but did you know that the diabetic foot ulcer treatment market alone is valued at over $3.15 billion? Statistics like that mean the results of a report…
Read More Bank Complexity/Paradox Holds Back Innovation in Check Fraud Prevention
Fraud prevention solutions have evolved significantly in the past 3-5 years in terms of improved analytics, business intelligence, risk scoring, image analysis, platform deployment, and decision support. However, the deployment cycles of these solutions can be complex and challenging. When you weigh IT overhead, project costs, systems integration, security, infrastructure — just to name a…
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62 Hospitals Sued for Fraudulent Patient EHRs and Falsified Claims
EHR Intelligence reports on a whopping sixty-two Indiana hospitals being sued in a federal civil lawsuit for allegedly falsifying records and participating in a kickback scheme, primarily by overbilling for the release of patient Electronic Health Records. As reported in The South Bend Tribune: Memorial Hospital of South Bend, Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka,…
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Good News for Banks: FDIC-Insured Income 5.2% Higher Than Last Year
The FDIC’s quarterly Banking profile contained good news for their client banks. FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions are reporting third-quarter 2017 earnings of $47.9 billion — that’s 5.2% year over year. Community banks make up 92% of all FDIC-insured institutions; they reported net income of $6 billion, up 9.4% from last year. Also, Net Interest…
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CPAP Denials Are A Bigger Deal Than You Thought.
Earlier this year, The Huffington Post reported on the largely negative impact Medicare regulations are having on CPAP users and providers. On the provider side specifically, CPAP denials have been known to top denials lists for HME and DME suppliers, meaning that understanding the layers of Medicare’s logic is the first step in understanding how…
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Are You Analyzing Your DME/HME Claims Denials?
The CHANGE HEALTHCARE HEALTHY HOSPITAL REVENUE CYCLE INDEX estimates that out of the $3 trillion in claims that were submitted in 2016, 9 percent ($262 billion in charges) were initially denied. For your average health system, that adds up to as much as 3.3 percent of NPR, dinging them for an average of $4.9 million…
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RCM Needs To Accept Millennials
Becker’s ASC Review reports that Millennials, or individuals born roughly between 1980 and 2000, now number 73 million in the United States (according to the polling firm Gallup). They are well on pace to soon outnumber Generation X — their immediate predecessors — at all U.S. companies. For review, here’s a timeline (just one of many…
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Australia’s New Payments Platform: Watch Out for Fraud, Say Experts
The Land Down Under is introducing New Payments Platform (NPP), the modestly-named and soon-to-be-launched system that will enable almost instantaneous transactions between banks and bank accounts, any day of the week. With convenience comes a level of jeopardy. Finder.com.au insights manager Graham Cooke told The New Daily that the new platform could expose consumers to fraud risks. “While…
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Newsflash: 90 Percent Jump in Uncollectable Denials in Just 6 Years
It looks like 2018 is going to be the year of denials and that’s exactly as foreboding as it sounds. Becker’s article based on the Advisory Board’s survey revealed that denials written-off as uncollectable, costs the average 350-bed hospital $3.5 million annually; a whopping 90 percent jump from just six years prior. Compounding this challenge…
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7 Strategies to Prevent Claims Denials
We operate in an already complicated reimbursements environment, so anything we can do to minimize the constant threat of denials is going to help the entire revenue cycle. Becker’s Hospital Review produced a helpful webinar discussing strategies to prevent claims denials that can be accessed here. In an article summing up the presentation, Becker’s distills…
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Out of the Trenches in the Battle Over Bank Customer Data
Fintechs and banks have been at odds with one another over customer information since the first moment that someone somewhere decided “fintech” was an actual word. American Banker reports that the icy relationship may be thawing. Fintechs have been arguing that they need to access bank customer account data to provide a variety of services,…
Read More Fee-For-Service Healthcare Payments – Shrinking
An article on the HealthExec website describes a Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN) report recently released, showing that 43 percent of payments to health systems came from traditional fee-for-service (FFS) payment models in 2016. That’s down from 62 percent the year before. Meanwhile, alternative payment models’ (APMs) share increased from 23 percent to 29 percent. While…
Read More Video – Highlights from Money20/20…Payment Innovation Is Everywhere
The Money20/20 conference this year in Las Vegas gathered an astounding array of speakers for what is called “The World’s Largest Payments & Financial Services Innovation Event.” Artificial intelligence, online commerce, robotics, even materials handling – – the spectrum of topics covered was enormous. In case you missed the conference (or if you attended but,…
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Selling a Latte For $5; Collecting Only 50¢ at Time of Purchase …
Sometimes it’s instructive to remind ourselves just how “different” the world of health care payments can be. Consider Dr. Andrew L. Pecora’s Starbucks metaphor in an article entitled The Quirky Way Physicians Are Paid: Imagine a hypothetical board meeting at Starbucks Corporation where a newly hired CEO tells the board how he intends to increase same-store…
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Faster B2B Payments: Don’t Overestimate the Challenge
While I was at Money20/20, there was a session called “B2B Payments: Investment is Heating Up & Paper Checks are Under Fire!” The session included 5 industry payment experts who were primarily taking pro-check positions. One of the startling observations which I heard was that they had little empirical evidence substantiating a significant business case…
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Feel the Pain: Paper Is Hurting All Healthcare Stakeholders
The Trends in Healthcare Payments Seventh Annual Report: 2016, available for free download – offers a look at how delaying the inevitable electronification of payments at all levels of healthcare transactions is costly on many levels to healthcare providers. Consider the following facts from a post at at AJMC: 88% of providers reported that they received…
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The Payments & Financial Services World is in Vegas, Baby
It’s advertised as “The World’s Largest Payments & Financial Services Innovation Event,” and it’s taking place right now (October 22-25) in Las Vegas – – the 2017 Money20/20 event expects 11,000+ attendees, including more than 1,700 CEOs and Presidents, from 4,500 companies and 85 countries. Their agenda is comprehensive and includes themes like PAYMENTS, BANKING, COMMERCE, SECURITY,…
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Becker “Power Panel” Makes 5 Key Observations on Managing RCM
Attendees at the Becker’s Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference in Chicago were treated to a panel of healthcare heavyweights discussing revenue cycle performance. The distinguished group included Vice President of Revenue Cycle Management at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare Gerilynn Sevenikar; Vice President of Product Management and Revenue Cycle Analytics at…
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Press Release: OrboGraph Profiled as Top 10 Leading Healthcare Solution in The TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
Overcoming the challenges of EDI adoption with electronification of EOB/EOPs Billerica, MA, October 19, 2017 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, was recently profiled in the…
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The “New” Amazon Cloud? Old News to Banks
It’s no surprise, as reported in The Wall Street Journal, and discussed in Fortune magazine, that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been pitching its public cloud services to banks. Amazon has spent the last 4-5 years trying to get security-conscious industries comfortable with the idea of using its shared computing and storage infrastructure. But are banks new…
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Deloitte Describes 3 Ways Blockchain Might Boost Hospitals Within Ten Years
Becker’s Hospital Review links to a neat and tidy summation of a comprehensive Deloitte report that examines the digital hospital of tomorrow. As we’ve discussed in this space previously, blockchain technology is poised to boost hospital operations in the foreseeable future. The three takeaways Becker’s extracted from the report in terms of specific ways blockchain tech…
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Want More Payment Data? How About 2243?
The PYMNTS-Ingo Money Disbursement Satisfaction Index™ is an impressive research document summarizing payments. If you’re a banker, product manager, solution provider, or anyone interested in payments, the 2,243 data points might interest you! There is certainly an anti-check tone to the initial sections, but overall the data is very interesting. Check out pages 8-21 for a…
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Payers Pressuring Providers for Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
A deep dive into revenue cycle issues in an article by Healthcare Informatics reveals a need for scale and cost reduction through process automation. “Commercial payers want more automation. The biggest movement we’ve seen in the past 12 months is a willingness to move ahead with electronic processing for pre-authorization for service. More recently, we’re seeing…
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“My eyes popped out of my head”; Checks Still Have Life
Brad Kvederis, marketing and research manager at Digital Check Corp., a Northbrook, Ill.-based marketer of check-scanning equipment, makes it his business to keep tabs on trends in overall check volume. He tells Digital Transactions News that he was “surprised” by the longevity checks have in spite of so many predictions of their demise: Kvederis points to a succession…
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Revenue Cycle Management Moves to Head of the Class
RevCycleIntelligence reported on a Black Book Market Research survey that revealed a resurgence of focus on the revenue cycle by hospitals: Almost three-quarters of struggling hospitals are prioritizing revenue cycle management over a number of initiatives, including population health, data analytics, physician practice acquisitions and recruitment, and patient engagement. The survey of over 6,000 financial and business…
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API Driven Solutions Enable Banks Anywhere
Application Programming Interfaces (API) are the backbone to connectivity between applications both across the web, as well as internal to banks. Check out this cool little YouTube Video to illustrate. OrboGraph’s greatest successes in banking have been due to our API methodology. It has given our business partners and direct clients the ability to embed…
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Brush Up Before Becker’s Conference: 25 Things to Know About RCM
If you’re going to the Becker’s Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference next week in Chicago, better brush up on the top industry topics. Check out Becker’s Hospital Review list of 25 things to know about revenue cycle management. The article was written in January, but still highly useful as it’s interesting to see…
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What’s Happening with Check Fraud Trends?
We’re looking for a few good fraud prevention men and women…do you know of any? We’ve been hearing from banks and credit unions that financial crimes using check payments have changed in 2017. After each discussion, the conversation almost always ends with, “so what are other banks or credit unions my size experiencing?” The last…
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Healthcare Moving to the Cloud – and Out of “Dark Ages”
A recent report available for purchase from Forrester Research (and summarized at Healthcare It News) says that healthcare specific developments from cloud service providers are in the process of ending the “dark ages” of health IT. From the report: The enterprise health cloud market is growing in large part due to healthcare CIOs increasingly realizing that…
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Want to Improve Online Banking? Add These Features!
The adoption of online banking, now incorporating mobile, has become a staple for the industry over the past couple of years. However, the online experience can vary greatly based on what features are offered from each financial institution. One area which has not received its share of improvements are value-added features for check-type payments. The…
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Paper Remains: OrboGraph Highlighted as Top 25 Healthcare Technology Vendor for 2017
Healthcare costs are skyrocketing and paper remains an obstacle to electronification — but, even with all that, the August CIO Applications publication (see electronic versions here) highlighted OrboGraph as a Top 25 Healthcare Technology Solution Provider for 2017! The magazine highlighted the OrboAccess cloud-hosted platform solution, which not only intercepts the paper but also streamlines the overall…
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OrboGraph Highlighted in CIO Applications’ Top 25 Healthcare Technology Solution Providers – 2017
Automating the Payment Cycle provides visionary direction for healthcare payments and remittances Billerica, MA, August 29, 2017 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, was recently highlighted in…
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For Checks, One Percent Increase Feels Like Thirty
A few weeks back we noted that a study had found that B2B payments by check actually increased by 1 percentage point from 2013 to 2016 (according to the 2016 AFP Electronic Payments Survey). Magnus Carlsson, manager of treasury and payments for the Association for Financial Professionals, took a deeper look at the significance of that one…
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A “Blocking and Tackling” Approach to Healthcare Revenue Cycle
The football season is soon upon us, and so we will tie this recent RevCycle Intelligence article into the season of the gridiron by offering a refresh to those in the industry and a step-by-step overview with many industry stats related to healthcare revenue cycle. Kicking off a new season in football requires practice, repetition,…
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Another Milestone: ATM’s Reach the Half-Million Mark
A new analysis of industry data by the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) reveals that there are now between 475,000 and 500,000 ATMs operating out there in the U.S. market. This achievement comes after years of what can be characterized as fairly stagnant growth (attributable to a struggling economy, Windows updates, and a complex EMV migration, among…
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EDI 835’s Close the Loop for Healthcare Fraud and Compliance
A comprehensive article at RevCycleIntelligence entitled “How Providers Can Detect, Prevent Healthcare Fraud and Abuse” offers insight into ways to “tighten the ship” regarding practices that cost the industry billions of dollars a year. Complying with the myriad of regulations can be difficult for providers who already focus on a range of priorities, including care delivery,…
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VIDEO: Check Payments Increasing in B2B
Contrary to what might be considered “conventional wisdom,” in 2016 51% of business-to-business payments were made by check. Does that mark a slowing in the “disappearance” of check usage? Au contraire – that number is up from 50% in 2013! Magnus Carlsson, AFP’s Manager of Treasury and Payments, discusses in the attached video the new…
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Hospitals Leaving $22M On the Table Says Advisory Board
Fierce Healthcare reviewed a report by The Advisory Board and lists four challenges in the area of Revenue Cycle Management. Most significantly, they point out that hospitals concentrating on costs are leaving big dollars on the table: The Advisory Board found that because of the focus on cost reductions over RCM revenues, the average 350-bed hospital…
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Financial Industry Tech – Think LONG Term
The story of Eastman Kodak’s fate is often used to illustrate the danger of late adoption of new technology. Even venerable and ostensibly rock-solid entities can find themselves marginalized and, ultimately, pushed out the picture (so to speak) if they don’t keep up with emerging tech. An article in the Harvard Business Review uses the…
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Cloud-Hosted vs. On-Premises Healthcare Applications
Adoption is driving huge growth for cloud IT vendors. However, an article at HIT Infrastructure shows that, in spite of the many advantages of cloud-hosted Healthcare computing — increased flexibility as well as less expensive scale when more space is needed (among other strengths) — many healthcare organizations are still weighing their options. IT departments who…
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News Flash: Checks Still Matter
The Association for Finance Professionals (AFP) has made available a white paper entitled “Not Going Anywhere: Why Checks Still Matter” (log-in required) that offers valuable insights in an easily digestible package. As pointed out in the report, check use in the United States for business-to-business (B2B) transactions remains at roughly 50% in spite of a multitude…
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2017 Industry Survey: The State of Healthcare Payment Electronification in U.S. Hospitals
What’s really happening in hospitals related to electronification of payments? Have other topics become a priority? Are there “hidden” problems in infrastructure which are adding excessive costs to the healthcare industry? Along with Commonwealth Health Advisors, OrboGraph completed a market research initiative which surveyed over 100 US hospitals. The objective of the research was to…
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Artificial Intelligence: Only Getting Better
With all of the tech we count on that uses actual experiential learning to better read handwriting on a variety of payment types — including checks, for instance — we probably should have seen this coming. Last September the white coats at Google added something called the Google Neural Machine Translation system (GNMT) to their translation tool.…
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How Banks Can Embrace Technology Through “Fintegration”: Podcast Summary
Here’s a terrific podcast interview via BAI Banking Strategies that you should listen to during your commute. In it, Andres Wolberg-Stok, Citi FinTech’s global head of policy, talks about best practices and approaches to incorporating financial tech – FinTech – in financial organizations. An important point Wolberg-Stok makes early in the conversation is the fact that,…
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On the HFMA ANI Hot Seat: Improving Revenue Cycle Performance
Wondering what attendees at the (HFMA ANI) Healthcare Financial Management Association’s Annual National Institute conference in Orlando, Fla., told Becker’s Hospital CFO Report when asked: What is one thing hospitals can do today to improve revenue cycle performance? A few highlights include: strong leadership in place to drive performance and utilize technology getting your payers…
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Compliance Management and Fintech: Natural Enemies?
An article at Banking Exchange takes an interesting look at the often uneasy relationship between financial technology organizations vs. the Fintech market covering the hot topic of compliance management. Instruments like the expanded UDAAP standards implemented by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau need to be at the forefront. Richard Holbrook, chairman and CEO of $9.6 billion-assets…
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Small Practices: Time to Jump on the Tech Bandwagon
An article in RevCycleIntelligence points out that an astounding 95 percent of practices with less than five physicians identified their facilities as “not tech savvy,” according to a Black Book survey. Small practices tend to avoid or delay health IT adoption because of the costs associated with implementation and upkeep. A 2016 Medical Group Management Association…
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How Fast Can a Card Skimmer Be Installed? Watch and Be Amazed
We’ve heard stories of card skimmers at outdoor ATM machines and even gas pumps ripping off consumers’ card information, but, admit it – – you always trusted card machines that are inside of retail establishments just a bit more, right? Watch this clip and marvel at the fact that this caper is pulled off in…
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How to Simplify Concurrent, Revenue Cycle Improvements
On the heels of the HFMA ANI expo and show, where thousands of vendors presented new and invigorating concepts for finance and the revenue cycle, an article in RevCycleIntelligence.com, spearheaded by Nalin Jain, Delivery Director of Advisory Services for CTG Health Solutions, provides insight on how to simplify many ongoing RCM improvements. “Whether you call it…
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People Twice as Likely to Trust a Robot to Perform Heart Surgery Than Open a Bank Account for Them
Artificial Intelligence, chatbots and robo-advisors are coming. Here’s an interesting example of how perceptions can yield crazy statistical results. A “Trust in Technology” report published by HSBC found that consumers are leery of allowing chatbots and robo-advisors to help them open a savings account or provide mortgage advice – – but they would trust them more for heart surgery! In an article…
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Integrating Care Standardization with Healthcare Revenue Cycle Excellence
RevCycleIntelligence.com reported that St. Luke’s Health System, one of 15 top health systems in 2017, was named as a top health system by Truven Health Analytics and IBM Watson Health based on care standardization! And how does this relate to revenue cycle? “When you standardize your processes and you perform consistently, we have seen fewer of…
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Access Denial Intelligence Now Available from OrboGraph for Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Marketplace
Market research by Commonwealth Health Advisors identifies major revenue collection challenges Billerica, MA, June 21, 2017 – OrboGraph a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, has released the Access Denial…
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Checks Tough to Shake From Their Throne in Pymnts.com Article
Pymnts.com reports that electronic payments are rising, according to a Viewpost study. Small and large businesses are recognizing the advantages of electronic payments. But, for all the rah-rah about electronic payments seeping into the consciousness of American businesses, there are no victory dances quite yet: Every single one of the business owners surveyed by Viewpost…
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Revenue Cycle Management – Attention to Detail is Vital
The June Coker Connection newsletter takes a deep dive into the importance and intricacies of Revenue Cycle Management, a topic we at OrboGraph hold near and dear. Jeff Gorke, Senior Vice President at Coker Group, opens with an irrefutable statement of fact: “Revenue is the lifeblood of any business. Businesses cannot thrive nor survive, regardless of their market…
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Social Media Provides a Gaping Hole for Fraudsters in Check
AJC.com recently reported the story of a group of fraudsters who used Instagram ads to solicit bank information for unsuspecting victims, who were robbed of substantial funds before the crime was discovered. During a scheme lasting at least 17 months, the FBI said, the trio posted advertisements on Instagram and other social media sites offering “fast…
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9 Healthcare Takeaways in Trump’s Proposed Budget
Becker’s Healthcare outlines in succinct form what they feel are the nine main takeaways in President Trump’s proposed budget. 1. Medicaid cuts. 2. Repeal and replace the ACA. 3. Medicare unscathed. 4. Reduction in CHIP funding. 5. NIH funding cut. 6. Cuts to CDC funding. 7. Veterans Choice Program extended. 8. Medical malpractice limits. 9. Funds…
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OrbyAwards for Excellence Presented to Eight Banking and Healthcare Partners/Clients Along with Induction to OrboGraph Hall of Fame
Billerica, MA, June 7, 2017 – OrboGraph, a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, recently presented its OrbyAwards for excellence and inducted eight recipients to the OrboGraph Hall of Fame…
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Switching Banks is in Fashion Again for the Small Biz
The American Banker podcast is a pleasant way to spend your commute. Their latest segment features a conversation from our business partners FIS, Doug Brown, senior vice president. He examines a recent survey that shows 14% of small and medium-size businesses switched banks last year and 18% are considering switching this year. “Business owners gravitate toward things that make…
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Cloud Data Migration Provides Boon for Healthcare Providers
Last week we announced the launch of the OrboAccess healthcare payment platform (see video here), which makes it a great time to reiterate how useful cloud data storage is to the modern healthcare provider. HIT Infrastructure offers a fairly comprehensive article exploring how healthcare organizations are benefiting from storing and accessing their data assets in “the cloud.”…
Read More 5 Reasons Paper Checks Fight Back, Spur Innovation
Despite the aggressive marketing attacks by many electronic payment platforms, even Bankrate advises readers to think twice before consigning their checkbooks to the nostalgia pile. Go to the link for details, but the five fundamental reasons paper checks are still important payment tools, according to Bankrate, are as follows: Many businesses shun plastic Ease of person-to-person…
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Value-Based Purchasing Still on the Table Despite Risk to ACA
RevCycle Intelligence reports on a recent BDC Advisors survey stating that, in spite of a possible Affordable Care Act repeal, healthcare executives still plan to stay the course with value-based purchasing implementation and healthcare cost reduction initiatives. However, political and legislative uncertainty has prompted executives to slow major capital investments. The report went on to say: Among the dozen C-suite leaders…
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OrboGraph Launches OrboAccess as Healthcare Payment Platform, Expands Functionality with Interactive EOB, Executive Dashboard and Denial Intelligence
New branding, modules and features offer enhanced access to healthcare payment and remittance data. Billerica, MA, May 25, 2017 – OrboGraph a premier developer and supplier of intelligent electronic/paper automation solutions in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), as well as recognition solutions, image validation and check fraud detection for the U.S. check processing market, has…
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Mobile RDC: Banks Driving Volume, Managing Risks
Mobile check deposit rolled out almost five years ago, and at that time it was used mainly by tech-savvy leading-edge early adopters. The “mainstream” bank customer, however, felt intimidated by the tech, or was discouraged by the limits set on deposits. Undaunted, BBVA Compass aggressively addressed theses concerns over the past year. The bank increased its check amount limits,…
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CMS and Medicaid DSH Calculation: 4 Things to Know
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the US federal agency which administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, issued a final rule March 30 addressing how Medicare and other third-party payments are treated when calculating hospitals’ Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital payments. Becker’s Hospital Review breaks down four important things to know about the…
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Life After “Death” – Consumers Still Find Checks Compelling
“Until about five years ago, I used to carry my checkbook everywhere,” writes Lainie Petersen in the Money Crashers blog. “In fact, some of my purses even had a special compartment that provided easy access to my oft-used pad of checks. Nowadays, however, I leave my checkbook at home. In fact, I can’t remember the last time…
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Would Motion Code Protection Against Credit Card Fraud Increase Check Fraud?
A French digital payment security company called Oberthur Technologies (OT) thinks it can pretty much eliminate credit card fraud with a new technology it calls Motion Code. What’s Motion Code? It’s basically a means of changing static CVVs to dynamic CVVs, changing every hour. If a bad guy gets your card, it would only be useful for…
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Stop Blaming “Gravity” for Your Revenue Cycle Problems
Derek Pierce of the consulting firm Healthcare Management Partners (HMP) says stop blaming market conditions for lagging revenue cycle performance. Look within, he advises. “If you’re unable to collect the cash quick enough, that could indicate that management isn’t focused on what’s important,” the HMP Managing Director recently told RevCycleIntelligence.com. “You can blame gravity for…
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Fed’s New Payment System & ECCHO Webinar: Good News for the Future of Checks
Last month at the RDC Forum: Atlanta, an event hosted by RemoteDepositCapture.com, a new unified platform for processing check and ACH transactions was discussed by a Fed spokesman. It’s expected to make its debut at the central bank later this year. The changes are a modernization of the Fed’s own internal systems, and appears to hold…
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Hospital Revenue Cycle: Hire More Physician Assistants?
In an environment that seems to value the leanest possible organizations, a somewhat contrary case is being made for the addition of more physician assistants in order to bolster Hospital Revenue Cycles. “They are well positioned to drive change as the US healthcare system adapts to a growing and aging population, the shift towards value-based care,…
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Gregory Breaks OrboGraph Record with 196 Slides in 60 Minutes
It was an hour of power…a happy hour…the eleventh hour. Whatever you want to call it, we covered a lot of ground during our webinar: Revisiting the 2017 OrboGraph Client Conference. Last week Friday, Joe J. Gregory of OrboGraph hosted the recap webinar from its 2017 Client Conference. The webinar covered every outside speaker session and breakout…
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It’s Time for Patient Care Leaders to Rethink Revenue Cycle
Last month, Kevin Ormand, Thomas Kiseau, Todd M. Bankhead, and Catharine Wilder of The Chartis Group published a white paper entitled “The Next Strategic Imperative: Rethinking Revenue Cycle Transformation.” It looks at the dramatic changes taking place around payment and operations in U.S. healthcare, and how those changes are impacting revenue cycle management. The white paper’s authors focus…
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Has Technology Stripped Our Banks of Human Values?
Recently we looked at whether or not the bank teller and associated “human touch” was disappearing from the banking experience (Verdict: happily, bank tellers are not yet “endangered species.”) In this interesting take from India, the writer, a sociologist, wonders whether the very same tech that makes transactions quick and easy – – mobile apps,…
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2017 OrboGraph Client Conference: Healthcare Update
Yesterday, we basically proclaimed victory for conquering the check processing world at the 2017 OrboGraph Client Conference in Atlanta. As a continuation of world domination, we’ll move into the topic of healthcare payments from the conference. Just to get you fired up, watch this introduction movie trailer. The topic of Healthcare payments is very complex and is…
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Orbograph Client Conference Summary: Payments and Check Update
To say the 2017 Orbograph Client Conference in Atlanta turned out to be a great event would be shameless self promotion, which we would never do. So speaking objectively, it all started with a must-see introduction movie trailer. Then, on the check and payments side, we recruited a number of the best companies and speakers in…
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“Crazy and Creative” Tools Fuel Population Health in New Ways
Leigh Williams, administrator of business systems at University of Virginia Health System and an assistant professor at The University of Mississippi Medical Center, explained to Healthcare IT News how health information technologies can help identify target populations, as well as enhance clinical decision support to enable more effective and efficient population health management. Conclusion? “Not…
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10 Big Ideas for Banking in 2017
American Banker provides their view toward futuristic ideas with 10 Big Ideas for Banking in 2017. It’s a combo of both cool and crazy concepts; each of the 10 predictions/ideas link to a more comprehensive look at the topic in question (also in a fun slideshow format). “Redefine a bank’s worth for the digital age,” for example, links…
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Would ACA Repeal be Credit Negative for Hospitals?
It wasn’t long ago that all signs pointed to “doom” for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Though it seems that the Trump administration’s initial attempt to repeal the ACA has been thwarted/deferred for now – – someone needs to add a question mark to our “end is near” signage… as of April 6th, Paul Ryan now…
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Bank Tellers: Endangered Species?
To a bystander watching people buy mochas with wristbands and transferring funds to and from their account via iPhone, the idea of going to a bank and dealing with a human being may be a quaint bit of yesteryear. An actual human being interacting with customers during banking transactions? What next – – rotary telephones?…
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2017 Orbograph Client Conference
Welcome to the 2017 Orbograph Client Conference! It’s been over 20 years since Orbograph first came to the market with our innovative check recognition and healthcare payment processing solutions. With over 20 business/alliance partners and 1500+ end-user clients, we host the Orbograph Client Conference every 12-18 months. Please join us in Atlanta for this memorable…
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Would You Want Tom Brady or Brett Favre To Deliver Healthcare Payment Processing?
If Tom Brady was in healthcare payment processing, he’d get to 100% automated posting of insurance payments… but he wouldn’t get there the way you think. Does he have the physical tools? Sure – – but that’s not enough. Attention to detail, discipline and hard work factor in even more than a strong arm. As much…
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Check Recognition Is Like the Greatest Comeback in Super Bowl History
How is the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history like check recognition? If you’re the New England Patriots, Bill Belicheck and Tom Brady, you practiced, trained and, to use their oft-repeated mantra, worked hard…“worked ‘expletive’ hard!” They constantly optimize technology and planning, and then execute on the field. That recipe all came together when they were down 28-3. They saw…
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Orbograph Finalizes Keynote Speakers for Client Conference as 2016 Closes with Strong Revenue Growth
Coker Group, RC Conserv, Amazon, and Orbograph subject matter experts will identify trends and present solutions to real-world issues in healthcare payment processing
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2017 RCM Global Forecast: Realistic or Exaggerated?
When a market report predicts steady, or potentially explosive growth of revenue cycle management, what comes to mind? Is it a real opportunity or should we be skeptical? This link provides a summary of the larger, comprehensive report offered by ReportLinker: The global revenue cycle management market is projected to reach USD 80.56 billion by…
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“Go Ahead, Write a Check for Your Coffee,” Just Not for Beef Jerky
Gert Watkins just become the poster child of checks in an article about the reality of check writing. The Wall Street Journal article, posted by former colleague and friend Kathy Strasser, explored the dynamics behind why checks still exist and what the leading motivations are. Of course, when it comes to checks, technologists want to bash…
Read More President Trump's ACA Executive Order
No, the ACA isn’t repealed – – that will take an act of Congress and, one would hope, a suitable replacement – – but President Donald Trump did sign an executive order hours after taking office that greases the wheels toward a repeal scenario: “To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Secretary of Health and…
Read More Did the 2016 FDIC Conference Deliver Short-Term Success?
The FDIC 2016 Community Banking Conference provided a foundational approach for the market. With the theme of Strategies for Long-Term Success, four conference panels discussed the community banking model; regulatory developments; managing technology challenges; and ownership structure and succession planning. Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg announced that community banks today account for 13 percent of banking industry assets…
Read More 7 Thoughts on the Importance & Future of Blockchain in RCM
If you don’t know already, Blockchain is a ledger of records arranged in data batches called blocks that use cryptographic validation to link themselves together. Each block references and identifies the previous block by a “hashing function,” forming an unbroken chain, which is where we get the name. (We’ve discussed Blockchain in the OrboNation before for banking and…
Read More The Future of Blockchain in RCM
A few months ago we asked “How Will Banks React to the Blockchain?” Now it’s the healthcare sector that needs to take a good look at Blockchain and its potential integration into RCM. Here’s an excellent Blockchain primer from Blockgeeks.com using a GoogleDocs analogy: “The traditional way of sharing documents with collaboration is to send a Microsoft Word document…
Read More Top 10 Retail Banking Trends & Predictions
For the sixth consecutive year, Digital Banking Report has surveyed a panel of over 100 global financial services leaders for their thoughts and predictions on retail banking and credit union trends. The crowdsource panel includes bankers, credit union executives, industry analysts, advisors, authors, and fintech followers from Asia, Africa, North America, South and Central America, Europe,…
Read More Orbograph’s Healthcare Payment & Revenue Cycle Management Predictions
Usually, our predictions are a bit on the conservative side. Why? Because the media likes to hype new payment mechanisms, but adoption is always slower than what the innovation pundits say.
Read More Orbograph 2017 Predictions for Check Payments
Within the first months of 2017, there will be a number of important market studies released related to check volumes via FED research, fraud losses (ABA Deposit Account paper), and retail banking (BAI). As OrboGraph looks to the future in check payment innovation, we believe the following trends will feed market innovations. Check volume declines…
Read More 10 Revenue Cycle Tips from Healthcare Experts in 2016
It’s the season for year-end lists – – this time, a look at revenue cycle tips for 2016 from ten healthcare experts via Becker’s Hospital Review. A few key takeaways include: Don’t lose revenue due to the shift in ACA price points. Analytics, analytics, analytics are needed to drive an optimized collection! And don’t forget…analyze your…
Read More Looking to 2017: Risk and Fraud
Andrew Davies, Vice President of Global Market Strategy, Financial Crime Risk Management at Fiserv, makes several great points about how quicker transactions – and the customer expectations attached to that speed – can be dangerous in terms of exposing fraud and theft opportunities. (Read it HERE.) Mr. Davies describes a “perfect storm of factors,” broadly consisting of: Greater demands…
Read More Top Bankers: What to Expect for Wall Street in 2017
Predictions. If we’ve learned anything in 2016, it is that anything can happen. Pundits and polls? Worthless! The Cubs won the World Series, for Pete’s sake! So, a tip of our hat to the banking pros who went out on a limb to predict Wall Street activities and trends in the year to come. We’re treading unbroken…
Read More Leveraging the Cloud for Big Data Analytics
All across the healthcare space, data analytics are providing exceptional results to the companies whose livelihoods depend upon accurate projection of future trends based on current divergent information inputs. Leveraging the cloud as a central information depository and distribution point has proved beneficial to Johnson & Johnson. A manufacturer of medical devices and bioinformatics, pharmaceutical, and consumer-health…
Read More Digital vs. Traditional: What to Prepare For
BAI.org offers valuable insight into consumers’ adoption of digital interaction with their financial institutions via a document entitled “Digital Banking and Analytics: Enhancing Customer Experience and Efficiency.” The downloadable PDF provides great information about current and future use of digital interactive technology among bank customers, as well as a cogent overview of future expectations that the industry…
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Healthcare RCM Predictions for 2017 from 6 Experts
The shift from fee-for-service to value-based care as well as an increasing number of patients enrolling in high-deductible health plans mean big revenue cycle management challenges for the industry. Becker’s Hospital Review asked six industry experts for their predictions and outlook on the coming year. It’s a quick read and easily digestible, but the main thread seems…
Read More Don't DRIP: Data Rich, Information Poor
As Steve McNair reports, the daily New York Times now contains more information than the 17th-century man or woman would have encountered in a lifetime. And, on top of that, we are regularly subjected to the DRIP (data rich information free) phenomena. Excel, PowerPoint, and other programs have easily created a flood of data and often…
Read More WHITE PAPER: Don’t be Derailed by Denials – 7 Strategies to Slash Your Denial Rate
RevCycleIntelligence.com is hosting a comprehensive white paper entitled “Don’t be Derailed by Denials – 7 Strategies to Slash Your Denial Rate” that deserves our attention (it’s a free download). Denial management in healthcare continues to be a challenge—in part because the traditional way of working denials is time-consuming, costly, and prone to error. Denials eat…
Read More The Life of a Check: Tree to Payment Processing
The folks at Crosscheck have put together a great overview of the life of a check – – starting at the tree (now that’s comprehensive) and advancing through the various legislative and technological steps that have kept checks speedy and relevant in the digital age. They also get into the nitty-gritty of check “construction” with…
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Washington Post: Ultimate Q&A About Health Care Under a Trump Presidency
Why not start off the holiday season with a little political analysis from The Washington Post? They have a pretty comprehensive online package, including videos, examining the possible future of the ACA and health Care in general under a Trump administration. As we noted last week, it’s not gone unnoticed that the “repeal and replace” rhetoric…
Read More Donald Trump Elected: His 7-point Plan for Healthcare
After last week’s startling election results, the healthcare community is now on notice that there WILL BE changes in the future. The man who vowed to eliminate the ACA (“ObamaCare”) had just, against all odds, been elected president. Must see TV! Granted, eliminating ACA might not mean completely “eliminating,” as Trump took a more cautious…
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Banking in the Next 5 Years: Video Interviews
Recipients of the 2016 FinTech Forward awards discuss how evolving technology will reshape banking in the next five years. Some of the key takeaways: Data, data, data. Huge value in data analytics for those who efficiently gather it. It will be crucial to respond to the shift occurring in the next five years toward “banking where and…
Read More MIPS: The New Meaningful Use
In April 2015, President Obama signed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) into law, effectively changing the playing field for healthcare reimbursements. The legislation repeals Medicare Part B Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) reimbursement formula and replaces it with a new Quality Payment Program (QPP). The proposed QPP consists of two tracks in a…
Read More The Devil is in the Details: A Parable of ONE KEYSTROKE
Steve McNair of FTP Consulting tells a great story about how a credit card processing company made a significant $$$ investment in system upgrades, which delivered “lower performance”. The customer blamed the solution provider — however, the system was running fine. Sound familiar? After nine months of working with the system, no one could identify the root cause of…
Read More The Value of a Data-Driven Approach to Patient RCM
It’s clear that with more and more medical/healthcare payments being remitted by the patient rather than via insurance providers, tracking and leveraging data derived from all payments is harder than ever. However, as Health System Management notes in a new article, it’s imperative to take a “3-D” — “Data Driven Decisions” – – approach to…
Read More Cybersecurity Awareness Month
In light of last week’s crippling web outage, it’s ironic to note that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has declared October Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The FFIEC hosted a webinar entitled Getting the Most Out of Your FS-ISAC Membership for financial institutions on October 31, 2016. Cybersecurity is, of course, crucial in the fraud prevention workflow, and last week’s outages…
Read More From Silos to Platforms: The Benefits of Comprehensive Risk Management
There are so many cross-platform consolidations in our daily lives – without missing a beat (literally), Spotify carries my favorite songs seamlessly from iPhone to iPad to desktop computer, for instance – that it’s getting harder and harder to imagine the sorts of silos that frequently exist in financial institutions’ risk management efforts. Yet, as…
Read More Feds Plan to Take SSN Off Medicare Cards
Get ready for a new complication, er… challenge – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is readying the healthcare industry for the removal of Social Security numbers from Medicare cards by April 2019. From HealthData Management: In April 2018, CMS will start generating new MBIs for all living and deceased Medicare beneficiaries, with information systems and…
Read More Top 5 Tech Innovations Your Bank Can’t Ignore—and Why
We’re excited to see that, of the Top 5 Tech Innovations Your Bank Can’t Ignored, we can actually contribute significantly to three of them! Let’s call them the “Key 3”: Continue to embrace Check 21 Leverage electronic workflows Automated tellers Part of the shared theme of the Key 3 is that the branch bank is far from obsolete. Online…
Read More Study: Revenue Cycle Management Solutions Surge to Deflect Impacts of Value Based Care
Black Book™ is well known for accurate, impartial customer satisfaction surveys in the services and software industries. They conducted their annual revenue cycle management outsourcing and software/technology user polls, and here are some highlights: Black Book found that RCM transition activities in Q3 2016 are being coordinated through advisors and consultants at 29% of the…
Read More Is the Honeymoon Over for Fintech?
René Lacerate, chief executive and founder of Bill.com, writes in a posting at American Banker that the glory days for fintech (financial technology) may be in the past. And just when we thought it was heating up! Lacerate says new fintech investments are tapering off as the broader funding market cools; also, banks are coming around and “starting to…
Read More 17 Winners and 8 Losers Under the ACA – What Do You Think?
A sure method for starting a conversational brushfire at a “civilian” (i.e. non-industry) cocktail party of other gathering is to begin a discussion on the ACA, or “ObamaCare.” Recent headlines detailing large insurance companies abandoning the exchanges have added fuel to the anti-ACA rhetoric, but, as folks in the industry know, things are not so…
Read More Same Day ACH is Here – and Paper Check Usage is UP!
The same report that finds 57% of organizations intend to use same-day ACH for last-minute payments also finds that business-to-business payments by paper check actually increased slightly from 2013, breaking the previous downward trend in check use. In fact, 86 percent have finally integrated their check payments systems with their accounting systems. There are still major…
Read More Here’s How Revenue Cycle Management Boosts Hospitals’ Bottom Line
What’s one of the most powerful components of RCM, and one that ensures great financial results for hospitals? Case management consultant Mindy Owen makes an excellent “case” for EDUCATION – – ongoing training of case managers is the key. Owen is a specialist in educating and developing case management teams, and has traveled across the country teaching case…
Read More Breaking Down The Faster Payments Construct
Set aside 13 minutes for the newest installment of the Countdown to Same Day ACH podcast series. In this episode, Jan Estep, president and CEO of NACHA, talks to Karen Webster about the overlaps, complements, and implications of all the capabilities under the faster payments umbrella. Ms. Estep says the best way to think about “faster payments” is as an umbrella…
Read More How Revenue Cycle Technology Can Rescue EMS Payments
Let’s face it: When your job is to extract persons from dangerous situations that quite often leave them either too impaired or too traumatized to engage in something so trivial as offering insurance information, most of your work in terms of vetting financial viability and insurance coverage is going to have to happen after treatment…
Read More J.P. Morgan Creates Exec. Role for Cloud Service; Stock Rises
Is the cloud for real for banking? J.P. Morgan thinks so. They’ve hired Harish Grama, formerly of IBM, as chief information officer for cloud services. An internal memo obtained by American Banker says: “Harish has extensive experience in leading large globally distributed organizations in cloud native offerings, Additionally, he was a key leader in driving the transformation…
Read More Revenue Cycle Leakage: 5 Red Flags Indicating Major Inefficiencies
Ongoing fiscal challenges continue to emerge on a week-by-week basis in the modern medical landscape including: The evolution of ACA higher uncompensated care costs managing MACRA reimbursement schedules unprecedented patient volume and the continued challenge to reach 100% electronification, just to name a few! With all of these uncontrollable obstacles, the last thing you want is to further complicate…
Read More How Will Banks React to the Blockchain?
If you’re not altogether comfortable with your grasp of what is being called the blockchain, you are not alone. Fortunately, a new book by William Mougayar called The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, And Application Of The Next Internet Technology comes to the rescue. As Banking Exchange’s Steve Cocheo points out in his article about the book, you’ll have to read…
Read More THURSDAY Webcast Will Highlight New Innovations in Risk Management & Automation for RDC
Did you know that “RDC Risk Management”, as defined by FFIEC, actually applies to ATM, kiosks, cash vault, mobile, as well as branch and teller image capture? Are you up-to-speed on the possible move of ATMs from RDC classification to centralized bank capture? How is your organization handling the “top 10” requirements of image-based risk…
Read More A History Lesson to Master the Bank Lock Box
For a variety of businesses and organizations, a lock box (or “lockbox”) solution is key to efficient and profitable payment processing for corporations, healthcare providers, and non-profits. Chris Nichols, Chief Strategy Officer at CenterState Bank, posted a great piece on LinkedIn about leveraging Lock Box services, along with a concise history. You’ll want to read the entire article, but here’s…
Read More Same Day ACH Will Challenge Fraudsters, Improve Other Payments
Starting on September 23, all financial institutions in the U.S. will be able to accept Same Day payments, with the option to originate them. The August edition of the PYMNTS.com Faster Payments Tracker™, powered by NACHA, contains an informative interview with Steve Kenneally, Vice President of the American Bankers Association, to get his perspectives on this important step forward…
Read More Trump & Clinton: 16 Quotes on Healthcare
I don’t think I’m being particularly provocative when I note that this year’s presidential race is fairly unprecedented in its … colorful rhetoric. Still, it’s important in this industry to cut through the clutter and grasp the issues that touch us as defined by both sides. Republican candidate Donald Trump’s campaign website encapsulates his healthcare viewpoints here; Democratic…
Read More $590K Counterfeit Check Scheme: "They Were Essentially Printing Money."
Earlier this month we talked about 10 tips for spotting a fake check – were you paying attention? If not, this will likely increase your vigilence. In a story out of New Jersey, we learn that a check forgery ringleader used a computer to manufacture fake checks: Stephens created the checks using graphic software, inflating the amounts…
Read More $32K Per Doctor – – Are Health IT Costs Driving Up Healthcare Costs?
Doctor-owned multi-specialty practices spent more than $32,500 per doctor in 2015 on new health IT, staff, maintenance, and related costs last year, according to a new analysis from the Medical Group Management Association. This is up from $23,000 in 2010. In 2009, President Obama signed into law the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health…
Read More ACH Finally Catches & Passes Check Clearing … or Will It?
The other day a friend was telling me about how he ordered a lens for his camera via Amazon at 10am in the morning, and had an Amazon truck in his driveway at 3:30pm that afternoon. We used to be astounded by 48-hour delivery, and now the “click”-to-doorstep duration is only a little longer than the…
Read More Advice for Improving Revenue Cycle Performance from 7 Healthcare Leaders
Hear it directly from the providers! In the new reality where patients are responsible for more of their healthcare expenses, hospitals need to be more “patient-centric” in their approach, as this shift from payer reimbursement to patient reimbursement has major implications for revenue cycle management. Frankly, it forces hospitals and health systems to abandon traditional processes for the adoption…
Read More How Do You Spot a Fake Check? 10 Tips for "Hands On" Review
Payment fraud and identity theft nags the industry as mobile and online payments grow. There are even expectations of check fraud increasing due to the additional safeguards of EMV on the credit card side, per the Atlanta FED. Detecting check fraud has changed over the years, evolving from a “hands on” approach of manual check observation to…
Read More Report: Dreaded ICD-10 Conversion Had Modest Impact
In March of 2014 we were warned that the ballooning of ICD-10 diagnostic codes from 13,000 to 68,000 was going to disrupt the finances and data systems of healthcare providers. As it turns out – it was manageable. A new report from public accounting, consulting and technology firm Crowe Horwath reveals four key findings (as originally cited by…
Read More Bank of America: Shrinking Workforce & Fewer Branch Locations
Bank of America has 23% fewer branches and 37% fewer workers than in 2009, the bank said in a recent presentation. Further, CNNMoney reports that they plan to cut another 8,000 jobs from their consumer business over time. Digital transactions are way less expensive and keep customers happy. In fact, BofA said it costs less than a tenth…
Read More Manual Denial Management – Survey Reveals Surprising Results
Would you believe 31% of all providers are still handling denied claims with completely manual processes? Imagine how difficult that is with EDI 835 remittance files coming in? Even handling correspondence letters manually is outdated. According to a HIMSS Analytics survey, about a third of healthcare providers are still manually processing claim denials. “Given the complexities around submitting claims and…
Read More Identity Fraud: New Techniques Respond to New Technologies
Banks are facing bigger and bigger challenges to ensure new accounts are actually legitimate. Once fraudsters create an account under a false identity, it can be very difficult to stop before its too late. To make it more difficult, online applications and online account opening give fraudsters the upper hand in manipulating their identities. From the American…
Read More "Why would I drive to talk to a video screen?" Six Video Teller Mistakes to Avoid
It’s not a live-in-person teller, and it’s not an ATM. But, based on conversations I’ve had with some of my older, more set-in-their-ways relatives, it may be the only way to get certain people to make use of a “machine” to do their banking. The interactive video teller machine certainly looks like an ATM, but the remote…
Read More How Mobile Apps Helped 100,000 Get Virtually Free Healthcare
The challenges of achieving an efficient healthcare system are far reaching. In the US, we are all familiar with HIPAA, healthcare fraud, delayed payments, PCI and the challenges of converting from traditional workflows into digital. As companies like OrboGraph help facilitate a transition to full automation of the insurance payment process, others are introducing innovations…
Read More Regulators Now Demanding New Deposit Reconciliation Practices for Banks & Credit Unions
Fed. Government: “Technological and other processes exist that allow financial institutions to fully reconcile discrepancies in deposit accounts”
Read More What Are the Lost Revenues When Patients Don't Pay?
Jaeme Adams, cofounder and CEO of SwervePay, has an interesting take on improving the reliability of patient payments. He lists three very good reasons to take seriously what he calls an “illness” infecting Healthcare provider offices across the country: $32 billion could be recaptured annually if the patient billing and payment process was simplified. This can be…
Read More Even With New Payments, Volumes Can Decline – Can Mobile Overcome?
In an article ostensibly about a new mobile pay program introduced by a little company called Google, there is interesting challenge that mobile payments needs to overcome to go truly mainstream. Volume decline...
Read More “Fraudsters are innovative & persevering—money is a great motivator!"
It should come as no surprise to security-obsessed online merchants that fraud is the leading concern of e-commerce merchants polled by the Merchant Risk Council, a Seattle-based worldwide association of e-commerce payments and risk-control executives. The MRC polled a total of 193 merchants in December and January at companies of varying industries and sizes (see their report…
Read More Revenue Cycle in a Value-Based, ACA World: 3 Must-Have Change Management Strategies
Efforts to improve revenue generation and capture are focused on the front end. However, well-designed and well-run operations contribute to employee satisfaction and better service, as well as reduced costs.
Read More What's More Important – – Faster Payments or Universal Acceptance?
While some major corporations and regulators in developed markets like the U.S. and U.K. are narrowing in on same-day and near-instantaneous electronic payments, in developing nations, businesses just want to trust that a payment will land where and when it’s supposed to – it doesn’t have to be instant.
Read More Identity Theft, Bank Tellers, and Fraud
If Manhattan's top District Attorney Cyrus Vance is to be believed, consumers may have as much -- or more -- to fear from bank tellers than they do from accessing their accounts online or with a mobile device.
Read More Report: FDIC-Insured Institutions Earn $40.8 Billion in Fourth Quarter 2015
End of the physical bank branch? Not at this rate!
Read More "End-to-End" System is Key to Value-Based Care Success
Advanced technologies, in tandem with improved workflows and better data, have resulted in RCM systems that encompass the entire healthcare enterprise.
Read More Three Branch Models Which Will Keep Physical Banks Alive.
Meredith Deen of Financial Management Solutions, Inc. (FMSI) thinks there is still life in the traditional bank branch.
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Orbograph Partners with Commonwealth Health Advisors on Hospital Survey To Identify Current Trends in Electronic Healthcare Payment Adoption
Survey targets hospital adoption of electronic payments (ACH) and remittances (EDI 835)
Read More US Hospital Electronic Payment & Remittance Adoption: Fill Out a Survey for a Chance to Win the OrboDrone
When it comes to Electronic Payment and Remittance Adoption in the US hospital market, what are the real numbers?
Read More OrboAnywhere Launches with BAI Innovation Showcase (Video)
I really enjoy gatherings like last month's BAI Payments Connect Conference because they provide an opportunity to re-engage colleagues interested in new technologies around "the check"... now, where else can you find that???
This year's event was especially gratifying because Orbograph used the occasion to launch the new OrboAnywhere™ solution...and they recorded my presentation to create a video!
Read More On Second Thought…. Checks – We Love 'Em!
In the interest of equal time - Checks? We love 'em!
Read More Kill the Check? "Kill the Check!" Says electronic payment advocate…
"Just because checks have existed since at least 13th century Venice and 19 billion of them were used to pay people and businesses in the U.S. last year doesn’t mean that we should keep them alive. We, as a country, somehow mustered up the courage to move past the horse-and-buggy and 8-track tapes – I think we can dig deep and find it within ourselves as a payments ecosystem to kill the check."
Read More The Paper Check is Dead; Long Live the Paper Check
Snapcheck founder Ken Kruszka describes describes the continuing popularity of the paper check as “ludicrous,” but contends that they have their advantages.
Read More 2015 Top 5 Payment Trends Are Actually Happening …
What were the top five payment trends according to BAI's 2015 Payments Connect Publication?
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Orbograph Releases White Paper on Payment Negotiability for the Omnichannel
"Ensuring Payment Negotiability for the Omnichannel While Delivering a Consistent Customer Experience"
Read More The Growing Value Proposition Around Mobile Deposit
Our friends at RemoteDepositCapture.com completed a new poll on mobile RDC and found that among those participating in their survey, 28% put the value of mobile remote deposit capture (mRDC) at up to $1.00 per transaction, and just 3% said using mRDC is of no value to them.
Read More Remote Deposit Capture Leveraged to Address the "Underserved"
Fifth Third Bancorporation is deploying Remote Deposit Capture to attract new customers from the ranks of un- and underbanked Americans, collectively known as financially underserved.
Read More What I Saw at the Show: HIMSS 2016
At this year's HIMSS Conference, I saw and heard things that make me confident that 2016 is going to be yet another year of startling growth in the healthcare payments space.
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Orbograph Announces OrboAnywhere™ Image Validation Solution At BAI Payments Connect 2016
Successful certification completed for Clear Inline® and Vault by Digital Check®
Read More The Readability Challenge: New Software Breakthroughs Virtually Eliminate Exceptions
One of the biggest hurdles in maintaining self-serve devices -- ATMs, Remote Deposit Capture (RDC), and kiosks, to name a few -- is ensuring that any negotiable item is converted and deposited correctly. Money orders are often the worst offenders, but there are still many checks with poor dropout features. Additionally, low-end scanners are more prone to poor images and MICR rejects due to cheaper imaging components.
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Orbograph Completes Successful Proof of Concept Testing of OrboAnywhere™
Digital Check tests interface methodology and validation logic on Owhere Test Cloud™
Read More A check is still the best P2P payment vehicle? Some say, "Sad, but it’s true!"
The vision of P2P payments is like a dream for mobile app vendors and bank executives who love digital payments. Let’s say you want to give or pay money to a friend, relative, or even small business. I recently went through this exercise several times.
And guess what? To my surprise, the best option was still a check!
Read More Not in the cards? Here's what the ATM of the future will look like
ATM technology is responding to the fact that, in spite of consumers' embrace of plastic, there is still a lot of love for cash (Chase plans to respond to the desire for cash access by introducing check-cashing ATMs in late 2016.). Checks are still getting some luvin' as well!
Read More The Key to Controlling Medical Claims Billing Costs? INTEGRATION
It's a safe bet that there will be a great deal of talk at this year's HIMMS Conference (February 29 – March 4 in Las Vegas) regarding integration in medical claims billing.
Read More Stay on Target: Spider-Man and the Omnichannel
We've been talking about the Omnichannel quite a bit, both in the OrboNation blogs and around the Orbograph offices. It's an important topic for financial institutions and retailers alike.
Read More Omni-Channel Strategies Demand Cross-Channel Consistency
During the Omni-Channel Capture: An Evolving Strategic Direction webinar recorded live at the RDC Summit 2015 (free for RemoteDepositCapture members here), the panelists agreed that Omni-channel delivery strategies, pioneered by hospitality and retailing companies, are becoming absolutely vital for financial services.
Read More Embracing the OMNICHANNEL: Banks Break Free From Legacy Systems
Before “Multi-channel” become Omnichannel, the goal was to provide multiple ways to interact with a bank and your accounts. For quite a while, the ability to check balances and make deposits by any means other than walking into a bank lobby – using a web site, ATM machine, smart phone, etc. – was novelty enough.…
Read More We're BACK after a brief break from blogging….
The OrboNation Blog is back! Why the slight “vacation,” you ask? Well, we’ve been busy with new staffing (James Bi, our Marketing Coordinator has done a dynamite job on trade shows and campaigns), new product priorities (healthcare payments going wild), along with new check processing innovations (full release of OrboAnywhere), just to name a few. So,…
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Orbograph Announces Pre-Release of OrboAnywhere™ at BAI Retail Delivery 2015
Multi-channel, real-time image validation targeted toward self service devices
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Orbograph Releases White Paper, “Strategic Considerations For Paper-based Healthcare Payments”
Paper addressing the future of EOBs, checks, correspondence letters and patient payments
Read More ECCHO Continues Strong Leadership, Reaches 25th Anniversary Milestone
In an era where “checks were away”, who would believe there are still 18B per year remaining. Luckily for financial institutions and the payments industry, we have an organization who providers leadership around checks; instituting rules which facilitate better, faster and more fair payments! Thank you ECCHO. The list of accomplishments is impressive. Check out…
Read More ABA Tool Looks Useful for Finding Routing Numbers for Consumers, but Will It be Helpful for Bankers?
The new American Bankers Association tool for finding routing numbers could be very helpful for consumers looking for routing numbers (also referred to as routing and transit/R&T). “Routing numbers are only issued to federal and state chartered financial institutions that are eligible to maintain an account at a Federal Reserve Bank. Accuity is responsible for the assignment…
Read More Congratulations to Orbograph Business Partners and Clients in the FinTech 100
Orbograph business partners did well in the annual FinTech Rankings of technology vendors (FinTech Forward) to the financial services industry conducted by BAI and American Banker. The study identifies the forces and trends that are motivating banks’ technology investment and ranks the top 100 companies along with their revenue generated from financial services.
Read More FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile (BQP) Shows Banking Industry Forging Forward
Does a 7.3% boost in earnings give you any indication of how the banking industry is doing holistically? The increase in earnings was mainly due to a $7.8 billion (4.8%) increase in net operating revenue (the sum of net interest income and total non-interest income), the biggest since the fourth quarter of 2009. The good news is that almost two-thirds of the 6,589 insured institutions reporting (62.9%) had year-over-year growth in quarterly earnings.
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Orbograph Introduces the 2014 Check Processing Innovations Research, In Cooperation with Industry Authority Vijay Balakrishnan
Independent survey by StratEx, LLC. to focus on innovations & transformational check technologies
Read More The Fundamentals Behind Managed Check Recognition Services
There was a great article written on the Institute of Financial Operations site called “5 reasons you should not manage OCR software internally”. The concepts and challenges for end-users to fully manage their recognition environment applies to all industries. We’ve seen how even in check processing, banks are underachieving in their check processing environments by 10%, 20% and even 30%, leaving large chunks of automation “on the table” for their employees to manage. The end result is higher labor costs, additional overhead to run the systems and negative client experience due to additional errors.
Read More ECCHO Doing “God’s Work” for Check Payments
As “the check” gets less and less attention due to the myriad of new payment innovations, rules for check processing continues to improve. Our good friends at ECCHO continue efforts on making the check payment better and better by gathering critical, industry-wide feedback on Reg CC improvements.
Read More Alternate Branching Strategies to Enhance your Geographic Footprint
The summer 2014 newsletter from industry consultant, Trent Fleming, identifies important considerations for community and large banks on how to leverage technology to complement branch “brick and mortar”.
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Orbograph Underwrites 2014 Strategic Healthcare Payments Research Initiative Benchmarking Electronic Business Practices in Hospitals
Independent survey by BoardTrust highlights best practices for electronic payment transformation
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EFT Reassociation to ERAs Implemented on Orbograph’s Healthcare Payment Automation Center (HPAC)
Leading healthcare payments automation solution delivers ACH payment reconciliation
Read More IOFM Payments Summit Delivers Futuristic Agenda
The IOFM Payments Summit (www.iofm.com) examined the opportunities, challenges and business drivers for emerging payments automation technologies and processes. Billers and banks need strategies for managing multiple payment channels and transitioning remittance and lockbox operations from paper checks to multi-channel electronic payments inputs. The beauty of this show was in its diversity of thought leadership and vision for the future.
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Orbograph Sponsors Healthcare Track at The Institute of Finance & Management’s Payments Summit
Participation involves three breakout sessions including Healthcare Revenue Strategies, LLC.
Read More Evolving from Paper to Electronic in Healthcare Payments
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #12. Gov. Thompson talks about how administrative simplification should move forward within the healthcare industry. Currently healthcare is behind the curve of adoption compared to other industries including many banking applications and insurance companies.
Read More Advice to Banks Seeking to Introduce Medical Banking Services to Healthcare Providers
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #11. Gov. Thompson believes financial institutions, including all banks, can add value to the revenue cycle process. Banks can be a supportive member of an integrated system for healthcare providers.
Read More Role of Banks in Automating Healthcare Payments
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #10. Gov. Thompson talks about the role of banks in automating healthcare payments. Healthcare expenditures are 20% of the GDP, so banks should want to lead the industry in order to maximize the revenue opportunities.
Read More Adding Value to Practice Management Systems
Practice management (PMS) software runs the business side of healthcare, from scheduling patients to billing to generating monthly reports. Unlike with electronic health records (EHRs), selecting and overseeing a PM system isn't typically the physician's domain. In a large practice, it typically falls on the office manager's or IT manager's shoulders.
Read More Orbograph Announces Accura XV™ 2.1 at BAI Payments Connect
Successful check processing implementations in banking leads to remittance innovations
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Orbograph Selected as a Top 5 Vendor in Revenue Cycle Management Software Report by PBP Media
Educational white paper addresses challenges within the revenue cycle of healthcare
Read More RemoteDepositCapture.com Initiates Research on Mobile RDC Risk
With all of the excitement of Mobile RDC, the industry has yet to experience significant losses… at least those which have leaked to the public. Orbograph commends RemoteDepositCapture.com for initiating a study in this area to help identify and quantify the risk in Mobile RDC; at least anecdotally. Business-focused RDC solutions have been very beneficial for the banking industry. Not only has the value been there for businesses, but the losses have been minor across the industry.
Read More If you Missed Valentine's Day, Don't Bother with Flowers
I know this is a few days late, but CrossCheck's recent post titled, "Valentine’s Day Payment Processing Equals Sweet Business", has got to be the cutest blog post I’ve ever read. Perhaps men can reflect on how we treated our “sweeties” on Valentine’s Day and compare it to the industry numbers… kind of like comparing to benchmark studies! For example, “60.3% of men will buy flowers, but only 36.9% of women even want them!” Ouch! Good thing I didn’t buy flowers this year!
Read More Improving the Bottom Line for Healthcare Providers
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #8. Healthcare providers are finding the current business environment to be very challenging from a financial standpoint. Major market factors such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a slow growth economy and consumerism are squeezing the bottom line of providers.
Read More Healthcare Industry Pain Points Video
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #7. There are many pain points in the healthcare industry today. Many of them are due to the uncertainties of the future, which are tied to a general confusion on the implications of new regulations. Healthcare providers, payers and other players are all affected.
Read More ICD-10 Healthcare Payments Educational Video
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #6. ICD-10 is a diagnostic coding system implemented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993 to replace ICD-9, which was developed by WHO in the 1970s. ICD-10 is in almost every country in the world, except the United States. When we hear “ICD-10” in the United States, it usually refers to the U.S. clinical modification of ICD-10: ICD-10-CM. This code set is scheduled to replace ICD-9-CM, our current U.S. diagnostic code set, on October 1, 2014.
Read More HIPAA Healthcare Payments Educational Video
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #5. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) required the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop regulations protecting the privacy and security of certain health information. To fulfill this requirement, HHS published what are commonly known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule and the HIPAA Security Rule.
Read More Implications of Patient Pays Educational Video
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #4. Gov. Thompson talks about how patient responsibility may increase out of pocket expenses for the individual. If the end result is not "extreme", this will be a positive influencer to the healthcare process and reduce excessive procedures, therein reducing costs within the process because there will be less denials.
Read More Accountable Care Organizations Educational Video
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #3. In this interview, Gov. Thompson talks about the impact of Accountable Care Organization (ACOs). ACOs are groups of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers, who come together voluntarily to give coordinated high quality care to their Medicare patients.
Read More Operational Impact of the Affordable Care Act
Former Health and Human Services Secretary and Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson is interviewed by healthcare payments expert, Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates in Q&A Session #2. In this interview, Gov. Thompson talks about the operational impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as well as the overall direction of patient care.
Read More The Real Reason Branch Traffic is Declining… Speed
I recently interviewed our Senior Integration Support Engineer, Boaz Ron, related to how he felt about going into a branch. His thoughts were the following: if I can get a deposit done through my phone, computer or ATM in under 20 seconds, why does a teller take longer? An ATM can dispense cash faster than tellers and there is always some old slow guy holding up the line.
Read More Retail Innovations Can Be a Little Creepy
There is a paradox in branch capacity planning right now. Retail wants more revenue, but branch transaction volumes have declined nearly 35%, according to a FMSI 2013 Teller Line Study, due to additional online products and RDC offerings; which mean less walk-in traffic. In response, technologists are trying to innovate the branch experience, while bringing a more personalized and sales-oriented encounter. In some respects, the branch is becoming less relevant, except when the customer “needs” to solve a problem and they want interaction.
Read More Congratulations to FinTECH 100 Business Partners and Clients
FinTECH’s annual top 100 companies in financial technology is comprised of a dynamic list of both public and private companies generating tremendous revenues in the financial industry, both in the US and globally. The interesting distribution of these companies illustrates the revenue power of the top companies.
Read More Top 10 Considerations for 2014 Budgeting in Check Processing
As we end another year of relatively stable check volumes in the financial industry, there are a number of cost-effective alternatives with excellent and proven return on investment which should be strong considerations for your 2014 budget. Although there is a decline in check volumes, it’s a stable decline, which implies predictability and less risk. Also, as product adoption curves of distributed capture points increase, a financial institution can better plan for significant improvements for each workflow.
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Orbograph Accura XV™ 2.0 with V100 Delivers on Performance Targets of Virtually 100% CAR/LAR Read Rate
Next Generation Recognition (NGR) Technology validated by ProfitStars’ Alogent® Solutions
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Orbograph Expands Healthcare Payments Division with Addition of Mike Gelbwachs
Senior sales executive to meet vigorous growth in healthcare payments automation
Read More Tellers Who Become Sellers Must Be Stellar
A recent article in Banking Strategies, The Strategic Implications of Tellers Selling, dissects the concept of traditional tellers evolving into sales people at the branch for walk-in clients. When presented in an orderly manner, the concept brings a fresh feel to the irony of the bank branch; leverage branch resources to drive revenue and increase transaction processing efficiency while branch volume declines. Tellers selling financial services can provide a great opportunity, but there is the possibility of “heartburn” for customer experience.
Read More Who Makes Sure Mobile RDC Really Works? It’s Orbotech!
As Orbotech, Orbograph’s parent company, announces its Q2 2013 earnings report, we thought it might be a good time to point out that pretty much all of the Smartphones on the market go through a quality assurance processing using Orbotech’s latest generation of automated optical inspection and array tester models within the fabrication of mobile devices and large screen televisions. For 30+ years, Orbotech has enabled electronic manufacturers to achieve increased yields and throughput in the production process of electronics using: automated optical inspection (AOI) systems for bare printed circuit boards (PCBs), flat panel displays (FPDs) and automated optical inspection (AOI).
Read More 8 Good Reasons Why Checks are Hanging On
An article today in PYMNTS.com called (From Paper Checks To Electronic Payments: Eight Questions To Ask) illustrates why converting to a new payment methodology is so challenging. Simply put, it's an “adoption process”. Any new product or idea in the market, particularly in today’s fast moving marketplace for businesses and consumers, must have a methodology for an onboarding process which is: easy to implement, requires minimal investment and limits internal conflict and resource allocation.
Read More What is the Relationship of Next Generation Check Recognition to the Top Five Retail Banking Trends for 2013?
According to an article in BAI Banking Strategies by Applied Predictive Technologies, retail banks will focus on managing the multi-channel impact of mobile banking, downsizing branches and selective investing in branch technology. The changing market dynamics due to the variables of new technologies and adoption has complicated the modeling process for the retail sector. This is an opportunity for operations to support the goals of the retail side of the bank by executing on new technologies in check processing automation. By taking a straight-through-processing orientation across the enterprise, the retail bank can focus on client needs, rather than overcoming operational limitations of systems. See how the five top trends can be optimized below with Next Generation Recognition (NGR) technology.
Read More What is the Next Generation in Check Recognition for Teller and RDC?
With successful implementations in teller image capture and remote deposit capture, we’ve accomplished one of the most difficult phases of the product development cycle… strong penetration. The business case has been proven out, solutions have achieved stability and the purchases of these services have offered a robust solution set of features. However, if we objectively evaluate the ultimate goal, straight-through-processing, we still have a major phase level in the process.
Read More Let the Fireworks Begin: The State of Image Capture Technologies
Vijay Balakrishnan led a spirited webinar, hosted by Orbograph, addressing The State of Image Capture Technologies. It’s always interesting to take a retroactive look at what the vision was 5 years ago, and compare that to where we are today. In Vijay’s presentation, he looked at how the vision of distributed capture overall has been realized. But there are areas where the full potential has not fully been achieved.
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Orbograph Announces Educational Healthcare Payments White Paper on Reassociating EFT/ACH Payments to ERA’s in 2014
Electronic Simplification standards and regulations will not alone solve industry problems
Read More Cashier’s Checks: Can Consumers Trust Them & Can Paying Banks Find Fraud?
A recent post by Fraud Avengers caught our eye related to Cashier's Checks. It’s interesting that this long time, reliable check source had become a target in many banks for counterfeiters. Fraudulent Cashier's Checks typically become a deposit fraud loss at the bank of first deposit (BOFD) when the paying bank has strong controls in place for their incoming cashier's checks. In order to best catch counterfeit Cashier's Checks, a financial institution should implement strong image analysis and data analytics which can weed out items that have different check stock layouts as well as items with serial numbers out of range.
Read More Teller Image Capture- Myths and Realities: Part II
A recent post by Fraud Avengers caught our eye related to Cashier's Checks. It’s interesting that this long time, reliable check source had become a target in many banks for counterfeiters. Fraudulent Cashier's Checks typically become a deposit fraud loss at the bank of first deposit (BOFD) when the paying bank has strong controls in place for their incoming cashier's checks. In order to best catch counterfeit Cashier's Checks, a financial institution should implement strong image analysis and data analytics which can weed out items that have different check stock layouts as well as items with serial numbers out of range.
Read More Teller Image Capture – Myths and Realities: Part I
Teller Deposit Automation (TDA) is where retail banking meets payment processing. The imperatives that drive these worlds are profoundly different. The previous installments dealt with some of the business case aspects of TDA. This post touches on systems integration and related business implications. Retail banking and payment processing- shotgun wedding, a bridge too far? Let us see.
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Orbograph Hall of Fame Expands with Nine Banking and Healthcare Innovators
ORBY Award Presented to Impactful Companies and Individuals for Successfully Deploying Recognition Technologies and Driving Market Adoption
Read More Orbograph Takes New Orleans by "Storm"
No pun intended, but New Orleans + Orbograph Client Conference = “a hurricane of check and healthcare processing”! The Orbograph Hurricane began on Wednesday evening, April 10th, with a wonderful opening reception. Nearly 70 attendees filled the reception hall to interact and listen to a local New Orleans Jazz band. A classy and jazzy way to start!
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Orbograph Announces Next Generation Recognition At BAI Payments Connect 2013
Check recognition enhancements deliver value to teller image and remote deposit capture
Read More Who knew recognition had such an impact at BAI Payments Connect 2013?
Can you believe next week is BAI Payments Connect 2013 in Phoenix already? The theme this year is “Building a Customer Centric Payments Strategy”. It’s impressive to see the number of check recognition innovations… it covers every Payment Summit topic. Check out these developments...
Read More FAQ from ECCHO – a Wealth of Information
Joining the ECCHO 2013 Operations Committee meetings in Dallas was a luxury to a vendor like Orbograph. The level of details which are covered related to topics such as check clearing, check processing and deposits is not only a testament to the commitment of the organization to excellence, but explains rules and concepts which are seldom exposed within the walls of software vendors. Examples of detailed analysis and discussion topics which are invaluable include...
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Orbograph to Sponsor Chip Kohlweiler of Deloitte at BAI Payments Connect
Fraud risk assessment service will target risk within bank silos
Read More Orbograph Client Conference 2013 is Just Around the Corner
Did you see our recent press release announcing our conference agenda with a star-studded line-up of presenters and topics? Join us for our Check and Healthcare Payments Automation Jazzfest where you will be blown away with an ensemble of content, networking activities and entertainment!
Read More Thinking Through Teller Image Capture
Check processing has always been considered a critical departmental activity which could impact customer service and the branch operations, but indirectly. With today’s popularity of teller image capture, check processing at the teller line has a much wider range of considerations. Teller image capture moves the entire capture and balance process to the front counter. The strategic implication of this move is more than just financial savings. Think about the impact it has on the customer “experience”, the employee environment in the branch, risk mitigation and work process improvement. Each category has a life of its own with many considerations.
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Orbograph Finalizes Star-Studded Speaker Line Up for Client Conference Featuring a Special Message by Former Governor Tommy Thompson
Wide range of speakers provides diversity and depth of content
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Orbograph Adds Jeffrey Buechler to Senior Management Team
Vice President of Finance to play critical role in company growth plans
Read More Convenience – Is it Driving Banking Innovation?
According to Michael Porter, a Harvard business professor and strategy guru, a company’s long-term survival dictates that a business strategy be chosen. Three primary strategies for consideration include: dominating a specialized market, providing consumers with the lowest cost for products and/or services and differentiating services and/or products.
Read More 12-12-12: The End of the Check is Upon Us
Today is 12-12-12. The number certainly holds significance in human existence as illustrated by: Apart from there being 12 hours of day and night, and 12 months in the year in the Roman calendar, there 12 signs of the Zodiac, 12 Apostles, 12 days of Christmas, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 old testament prophets... you get the idea. Some say the day symbolizes love, others completeness or fulfillment. Later this month, according to the Mayan Calendar - 12-21-12 - DOOMSDAY!
Read More Recognition Systems Plateau Before they Grow
As I was planning for our 2013 Orbograph Client Conference, I was reviewing materials from a past years conference, and have to admit, was a little disturbed on a few memories! I remember that conference like it was yesterday. Beyond the excitement of a conference in Salem, MA around Halloween, and a really fun theme called “A Supernatural Opportunity from Orbograph”, three very distinct topics gave me flashbacks...
Read More 11 Capabilities of Teller Image Capture You Need to Ask For
There are white papers galore written by the industry’s best teller image capture providers which explain the business case behind teller image capture. It’s encouraging to the market that this workflow is catching on in both large financial institutions and community banks. In fact, based on a recent flurry of large banks making decisions to move to teller image capture, the numbers for this market segment should reach nearly 60% per Celent.
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Orbograph Announces Automation Services for RDC™
New recognition solution addresses corporate, consumer and mobile remote deposit capture
Read More Data Entry Throughput and Cost: The Real Numbers
Over the past 15 years, Orbograph has been working with many organizations to identify the miskey rates of data entry operators. This research included: End-user banks, Data entry providers to Orbograph and Research engagements with Global Concepts and Metasoft. Part of our analysis was focused on unit costs of keying, while balancing was also an important consideration. One thing is certain, the environmental variables play a major role in the accuracy of data entry operators.
Read More Today’s “One-Shot” Customer Service Opportunity in the Bank Branch
With more and more retail and commercial customers utilizing online and mobile banking technology for deposits, transfers and person-to-person (P2P) activities, fewer customers are making their way into retail branches. While these advances are great as an added convenience, is does create a problem for the banking industry, particularly financial institutions promoting “personal/local banking”. Without customers interacting one-on-one with tellers and personal bankers, there is a missed opportunity on confirming customer satisfaction and up-selling other financial products. For this reason, it is vital that financial institutions capitalize on every customer that walks through the door.
Read More Even Mobile Banking Cannot Drive 100% “Online Banking” Enrollment
It is no secret that banking has come a long way in the past decade. Technological changes have played a tremendous role in expanding services which banking customers now have access to. However, are we limited by the 80/20 rule?
Read More Why Checks have a Place in our Future
Everyone seems to want to pick on the check. Poor little guy… Obviously there are inefficiencies with checks, which translate into innovations and new products which generate margin in certain market segments. But let’s not forget...
Read More Envision More out of your Branch and Teller Image Capture
Mediocrity vs. excellence. It’s the dilemma which many financial institutions (FI) face when they implement a new system. But why are we speaking about mediocrity when the expectations for a new system is excellence? Because many times FI’s do not have processes in place to ensure success, do not hold their employees accountable and/or accept mediocre results from their vendors.
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Orbograph’s Controversial White Paper Challenges Financial Industry to Take Branch and Teller Capture to New Level
White Paper offers 20+ worthy concepts for improved processes
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Orbograph Successfully Implements Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management Solution
Orbograph P2Post™ Reduces EOB Processing Costs by up to 60%
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