After a 15-month implementation of Cerner electronic health record (EHR) and Cerner Millennium® revenue cycle management solutions at three hospitals in Chicago and Dallas that started in June 2019, Pipeline Health and Cerner worked together to begin a 90-day revenue cycle optimization engagement in early March 2021. After three months of extensive interaction and collaboration, Pipeline Health was able to further improve revenue cycle operations and functionality within Cerner.
Cerner consultants collaborated in near-real-time, both on-site and virtually, to implement work queues and integration to better tailor the work with Pipeline staff. Multiple disciplines were engaged between Pipeline’s IT department, Central Business Office, Coding teams and the SSI Group.
As a result of this optimization effort, Pipeline was able to lower their discharged not submitted to payer (DNSP) dollars by roughly $17 million1 and experienced a 50% overall reduction in DNSP days.2
Pipeline’s clean claim rate improved by 33%3, which means more claims going out the door that aren't getting kicked back for edits and review.
The additional onsite and virtual staff training sessions enabled the staff to ask questions to further perfect work queues & rules which helped continuously get Accounts Receivable stabilized post conversion.
Overall, both Pipeline and Cerner teams were pleased with the results of the collaboration to optimize revenue cycle performance, post go-live.
“We are pleased with the benefits of this collaboration between our Pipeline Health staff and the Cerner team, especially during the challenging COVID pandemic,” said Robert Allen, Pipeline Chief Financial Officer. “It is Pipeline’s privilege to serve often underserved communities, and efficient internal systems are an important part of that service.”
1Comparing March 9, 2021 to May 31, 2021
2Comparing 19.56 DNSP days on March 9, 2021, to 9.56 DNSP days on May 31, 2021
3Comparing March 9, 2021 to May 31, 2021, for a total percentage change of 65%
