A new podcast at PYMNTS.com features a conversation with Jennifer Barker, Managing Director and Head of Wholesale Payments Product Delivery at JPMorgan Chase & Co., on the topic of business resiliency in this unprecedented pandemic environment.

In an environment challenged by Coronavirus, the already significant problem of healthcare fraud is more harmful than ever. Blue Cross Blue Shield reports: The National Heath Care Anti-Fraud Association estimates conservatively that health care fraud costs the nation about $68 billion annually — about 3 percent of the nation’s $2.26 trillion in health care spending.…

RevCycleIntelligence.com cites a Commonwealth Fund study that shows outpatient visits for more than 50,000 providers declined by nearly 60 percent in mid-March when COVID-19 began to take hold, and the volumes have remained low through mid-April. Stay-at-home orders, of course, had much to do with the sharp downturn. Similarly, hospital visits also saw a substantial…

Moving from “big data” to “wide data” Visualization of data through DataOps and technology Data Visualization benefits for the Revenue Cycle Management In the digital world, we are seeing tremendous growth and robustness of data being collected through various systems, particularly in healthcare. According to a recent press release from Gartner: By 2020, most data and…

As the COVID-19 pandemic hopefully continues to subside — and the general population becomes more and more used to social distancing and appropriate use of facemasks — companies that had sent their employees home to work are beginning cautious steps toward bringing a portion of them back to the office. Cerner, for example, has begun…

In addition to disrupting the lives of nearly every person across the globe, the novel coronavirus has utterly upended physicians’ practices, according to a recent article at RevCycleIntelligence. A survey conducted April 10 to 13 by the Primary Care Collaborative and The Larry A. Green Center found that half of primary care practices are unsure…

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the labor landscape. With mandated shutdowns across the country for non-essential businesses to slow the spread of COVID-19, we’ve seen a shift toward working remotely, AKA “work-from-home.” Although official statistics are not readily available, according to Netskope – a provider of cloud security services for Fortune 100 companies –…

In the era of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s more important than ever for revenue cycle management to operate at maximum efficiency. Many practices are facing economic uncertainty and cannot afford any additional fiscal leakage. Indeed, as recently reported by Healthcare Finance News, waste and inefficiency can be a killer in this environment. How much waste…

The world continues its effort to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic. Governments have issued stay-at-home orders and have temporarily closed locations of nonessential businesses. PricewaterhouseCoopers recently released survey results that indicate pessimism among CFOs of healthcare organizations and other major companies regarding the impact COVID-19 will have on their bottom lines. As reported…

OrboNation readers are well aware of the value Artificial Intelligence has in Revenue Cycle Management. Still, as reported by RevCycleIntelligence.com, a recent Black Book survey of C-suite executives found less than half (44 percent) of healthcare organizations already use AI in some form or another. On the other hand, 88 percent anticipate widespread implementation within…

In response to the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic, the United Arab Emirates have called upon insurers to streamline payments to stressed healthcare providers. As reported in The International Travel and Health Journal, outpatient visits spiked in early February. Now, timely — or even early — release of funds is vital in order to keep these facilities…

If you are a revenue cycle management professional, then you are most likely familiar with the Council of Affordable Quality Healthcare or CAQH — a non-profit alliance and leader in creating shared initiatives to streamline the business of healthcare. CAQH is at it again, actively tweeting to distribute findings from its 2019 CAQH Index on…

One of the primary topics scheduled to be covered at this year’s HIMSS20 was — no surprise – the use of Artificial Intelligence in modern healthcare administration. However, the “surprise” came a week ago when HIMSS20 was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic — a wise move given the emerging nature of this worldwide medical…

A key component in the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic appeared on March 13, as a new CPT® code — 87635 — streamlining novel coronavirus testing offered by hospitals, health systems, and laboratories in the United States. The American Medical Association provides details on utilizing the new CPT ® code: The full CPT code description…

Pymnts.com’s Karen Webster interviews Ingo Money CEO Drew Edwards about the world of instant disbursements, and whether their popularity heralds the possibility of eliminating checks in the healthcare spectrum. Their primary conjecture: At the dawn of a new decade, healthcare stands poised to embrace digital payments. Mr. Edwards states that when customers are given a…

In an announcement made yesterday, March 5th, it was announced that HIMSS20 will be cancelled this year due to concern over the coronavirus outbreak. The event was scheduled to take place March 9-13 in Orlando, Florida, and this is the first time in 58 years that it has been cancelled. HIMSS has been keeping a…

Over the past decade, we have seen a tremendous evolution in healthcare, particularly in healthcare payments and revenue cycle management. But how far have we come since 2014? In 2014 we sat down to talk to Mark Brousseau, President of Brousseau & Associates, to get his perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing healthcare payments…

For all the talk of Artificial Intelligence capabilities and their value to organizations and industries of all sorts, it should be noted that, according to the 2019 MIT SMR-BCG Artificial Intelligence Global Executive Study and Research Report, nine out of ten companies have made some investment in AI, but 70 percent said they have seen…

Introduction to the Nashville Health Care Council and their events OrboGraph’s participation in the Nashville Health Care Council Summary of the “Wall Street’s View on Prospects for the Health Care Industry” event Nashville is known as the health care capital of the United States — it is, after all, the location for headquarters of 18…

MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group recently collaborated on a white paper exploring AI as a tool entitled Winning With AI (you can download the paper HERE). Subtitled Pioneers Combine Strategy, Organizational Behavior, and Technology, the white paper is a nice encapsulation of their global survey. Conducted in Spring 2019, the survey attracted…

The Nashville Health Care Council is known for its groundbreaking mission trips to locations around the world in search of healthcare innovations. In 2019, Israel was the focus. Israel also happens to be OrboGraph’s technology center of excellence, along with the corporate headquarters of its parent company, Orbotech – a KLA Company. OrboGraph is also…

  You might imagine that only persons involved in high-end technical jobs are dealing with Artificial intelligence (AI), but it’s actually used widely in an array of industries. For example, in consumer cameras like the Sony A6600, AI aids in identifying specific faces and eyes in its follow-focus feature. AI plays a role in everything…

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,”…

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…

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…

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,…

“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…

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,…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

A new Navigant analysis has found that over 60 percent of hospitals and health systems are not realizing optimal value from their EHR system.

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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)…