When faced with the challenge of a system conversion, many HCOs recognize that their Revenue Cycle organization may have the opportunity for significant organizational change. CHRISTUS chose to address this opportunity by reaching out to Tegria, and they provided us with the chance to collaborate and design a CHRISTUS vision for a top-performing Revenue Cycle ahead of the EHR conversion.

Ryan Thompson, SVP of Finance, CHRISTUS Health

Background and Challenge

CHRISTUS Health is a leading healthcare provider across multiple regions in the southern US. While CHRISTUS already used the Epic EHR platform in many of their hospital and clinic settings, they planned to roll out Epic across the remaining regions currently using MEDITECH as a part of a “Converge project” effort.

As the Converge planning began to ramp up, CHRISTUS leadership realized their existing instance of Epic could be optimized to improve patient experience and revenue cycle performance. CHRISTUS envisioned a one-stop patient access experience that would enable patients to have a more consistent, intuitive financial experience, whether they visited the Good Shepherd Emergency Center in Kilgore, Texas, or the Advanced Diagnostics Center in Shreveport, Louisiana.

In addition to a more consistent patient experience, CHRISTUS wanted to ensure sustainable operational excellence with standardized, systemwide change control and decision-making. CHRISTUS leaders wanted their instance of Epic to support a more efficient revenue cycle, resolving and avoiding bottlenecks to help decrease days in A/R and increase cash flow. Most importantly, CHRISTUS leaders wanted revenue cycle workflows and processes to be grounded in robust industry best practices and informed by the organization’s long-term strategy.

Solution

CHRISTUS looked to Tegria to provide a comprehensive blueprint to optimize revenue cycle operations around three core pillar areas: 

• Patient Access Centers 
• Revenue Integrity 
• Patient Financial Services 

CHRISTUS leadership asked Tegria to help craft a future state vision for what their Revenue Cycle operation could and should be, guided by industry best practices and Tegria’s breadth and depth of Epic implementation experience. They wanted workflows that made sense and strong revenue cycle operations that would allow their organization to continue providing outstanding healthcare experiences to their patients.  

The intention was to ensure that CHRISTUS kept the future state in mind as we began this journey. Consultants from Tegria were able to really listen to us and truly understood the needs of the organization. They were then able to transform those ideas into a framework for our future Revenue Cycle organization.

Ryan Thompson

Quick Wins

In addition to a long-term vision for CHRISTUS’s revenue cycle, we provided a focused list of near-term recommendations along with actionable guidance for quick, sustainable improvements around: 

• Remittance Codes 
• Workqueue Assignment 
• Remittance Splitting 
• Candidate for Billing (CFB) Days

Results

Our team delivered a robust “architectural blueprint” for optimized future-state operations and outlined key opportunities for focused improvement, including: 

• Consolidation + Standardization 
• Governance + Organizational Structure 
• Workqueue Optimization 
• Reporting Optimization  

Working side-by-side with respective operational and technical leadership, we provided strategic advisory, best practice recommendations and Epic build guidelines. Our team also provided readiness advisors throughout the process to help ensure that system design and implementation were in alignment with the designed blueprint.  

Our comprehensive blueprint contained more than 75 best practice recommendations for successfully transitioning to the Epic EHR platform, transforming a revenue cycle from good to great, and maintaining that momentum moving forward. The blueprint broke down what’s possible, and helped CHRISTUS map a path to their goal in realistic, achievable steps.  

From day one, CHRISTUS has been engaged, collaborative, and the ultimate partner on a very challenging project.

Patrick Kelly, Tegria Consultant, Revenue Cycle Transformation

We partnered with leaders to make decisions that supported the long-term health of CHRISTUS, even when that meant thinking outside of the box and pushing to do things a little differently, applying creativity to break through the complexity.  

After reviewing the blueprint and work, CHRISTUS selected Tegria to help implement the recommended changes and fulfill their vision as a leader, partner, and advocate in creating innovative health and wellness solutions that improve the lives of individuals and communities.