Robotic Process Automation Helps Hospitals Address Declining Revenue Yield

The next wave in the automation revolution is coming to healthcare business processes.  

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) utilizes software or “bots” to automate business processes across a variety of platforms. These bots can mimic tasks that a human employee performs behind a computer and can perform the redundant, menial tasks that cost hospitals time and money. It can also create new processes that could not be previously cost justified using human employees. RPA increases productivity and accuracy while adding revenue and lowering operating expenses. Bots never get sick, take vacations or need weekends off.

Millwood Associates provides customized software bots designed and programmed to fit healthcare business processes, such as in the revenue cycle. Because they are logic and rules-based, they perform exactly what they are designed to do each and every time, eliminating costly errors. They sit at the user interface level and can function across platforms and systems. They can type keystrokes, make mouse clicks, and grab and store data from the screen. They can call other processes in existing systems and respond to results.

RPA typically does not require any hospital I.T. resources (such as interfaces), because a bot simply functions as an employee, requiring only a system login. Deployment times are short -- a bot can be set up in a few days and put to work quickly.

For example, a bot could be built that looks up all self-pay patients seen in the last three months, then logs into the state’s Medicaid eligibility system looking for retro Medicaid enrollments. If a patient is found to have retro Medicaid eligibility, the bot can trigger a rebill of a past account to Medicaid with no human intervention required. This converts a no-pay account into one paid by Medicaid. Doing this manually by an employee would be inefficient, but a bot can do this automatically at very low cost.

Millwood Associates has partnered with Diversified Robotic (DR) to blend Millwood’s healthcare operations experience with DR’s technology expertise to bring the benefits of RPA to our healthcare clients. 

Here at Millwood Associates we’ve identified several valuable uses of RPA in healthcare business processes, focusing strongly on capturing new revenue from services that hospitals are already delivering. To discuss these opportunities, contact us at (360) 719-1200.

ABOUT MILLWOOD ASSOCIATES: We’re a healthcare consulting group that helps hospitals improve their financial margins to ensure sustainability of mission. All of Millwood’s solutions are designed to fix broken processes which erode hospital margins. For example, by helping hospitals get paid fairly for the services they provide, we can remove the pressure and damage of harmful cost cuts, typically adding 2 to 3 percentage points to their margin. Follow us on LinkedIn, or click here to find out how to get started with sustainable fixes for your margin challenges.