Cerner Makes Strides with Improving Revenue Cycle Management Product

September 04, 2019 - Provider organizations using Cerner’s revenue cycle management product are overwhelmingly reporting an improved relationship with the vendor despite a lack of financial outcome improvements, according to a recent KLAS report.

The August 2019 report detailed Cerner’s progress with implementing a “significant pivot” that aims to regain the confidence of revenue cycle management product users and deliver a world-class revenue cycle management solution.

Cerner committed to improving the revenue cycle management product last year when the vendor hired KLAS to convene representatives from some of Cerner’s largest and most complex customers to generate insights on how the vendor can make progress with its revenue cycle management solution.

Representatives who attended the 2018 summit reported noticeable improvements by the second quarter of 2019, the report showed. However, representatives felt the changes were around the relationship with the vendor and not the revenue cycle management product.

Eighty-eight percent of representatives felt their relationship with Cerner improved, which is up from 44 percent the previous quarter. Two-thirds of representatives also reported that Cerner has made customer revenue cycle management success a priority.

“Leadership changes, more attentive support, and increased transparency have improved customers’ impressions of Cerner. Some even call Cerner a partner in revenue cycle (something that was uncommon over the previous five years),” KLAS wrote in the report.

Cerner customers are seeing improvements pertaining to the vendor, but they are still waiting for tangible solution improvements, KLAS added.

Fifty-six percent of representatives who attended the summit convened by KLAS nearly a year ago cannot report a single “win” that Cerner has delivered since then. Wins in the report included improvements to automation issues, improvements in bad debt turnover, development of API environment, leadership changes, and relationship improvements.

As a result, 88 percent of representatives who attended the summit felt unsatisfied with tangible improvements since the August 2018 meeting. Ninety-four percent also voiced an urgent need for tangible improvements that directly impact their organization.

“As Cerner has become more transparent, some customers have found that the product is further from ideal than initially believed. Concern with the lack of tangible results continues to grow, and the need for results is becoming more urgent as time passes,” KLAS wrote.

Product shortcomings have created real-world financial challenges for some Cerner hospitals and health systems. For example, a New York hospital sustained financial losses of $37 million in 2017 when Cerner’s billing system malfunctioned. Cerner later settled the claims with the hospital.

Agnesian Healthcare in Wisconsin also sued Cerner in 2017 after the system lost $16 million after implementing the company’s billing system. The health system claimed Cerner’s revenue cycle management product was error-prone and caused employees to use manual workarounds to create bills.

Cerner customers have had issues with the revenue cycle management product over the years. Earlier this year, KLAS found that 70 percent of representatives from provider organizations using revenue cycle outsourcing products from Cerner regretted their purchase and would not buy the service again.

But Cerner wasn’t the only vendor facing criticism, the report found. About one-third of all representatives using either revenue cycle outsourcing or extended business office services had buyer’s remorse. Other vendors in the report included Navigant, R1 RCM, Ensemble Health Partners, Conifer Health Solutions, Parallon, and nThrive.

“Provider organizations investing in outsourced revenue cycle services to relieve cost and resource burdens need their firms to take true ownership of the complex revenue cycle and deliver accordingly. Unfortunately, some firms are falling short—most common for clients using full revenue cycle outsourcing (RCO). As a result, organizations are increasingly choosing and generally report more success with extended business office services (EBOS), which are more focused in scope,” KLAS wrote in the report.

Revenue cycle management vendors are starting to take customer satisfaction much more seriously, and Cerner is leading that charge. The health IT vendor is making significant progress with healing its relationships with providers and has committed to making more tangible improvements in the near future.