In every edition of Cycle Up, we have a conversation with one of the leading voices on the Meduit team. In this issue, we’re talking with Chris Harding, Meduit’s Chief Information Officer, about the significant role technology plays in helping Meduit customers optimize their revenue cycle performance.
Q. What drew you to your current role at Meduit?
A. I felt like Meduit filled a niche that no other vendor in the revenue cycle management space did, and that the potential for growth was significant. We cover bad debt, early out, and the insurance space, which is unique. Typically, companies have expertise in one area, not necessarily all three. There isn’t another player in this arena that does all of them, and I think that inspires many interesting possibilities.
Q. Will you describe your role as Meduit’s Chief Information Officer?
A. The technology team supports everything that happens across the spectrum of Meduit’s business—the insurance component, early out, and bad debt. We support all of that at a high level, and we also take care of the necessary daily activities like supplying people with their desktops and telephones. Essentially, we help the company function and run. Whether we build it or host it, or even if it’s another vendor’s product, we’re responsible for supporting all areas of the business to optimize our services.
Q. What’s been the biggest surprise since you joined the Meduit team?
A. The surprise to me is that there’s a lot more potential than I expected and possibilities to apply more technology to help deliver solutions to our customers. I think as we continue to streamline our processes and enhance our analytics and reporting capabilities, we’ll just keep building better systems to support the future needs of our customers and internal staff.
Q. How do you make sure that Meduit’s IT initiatives enhance the RCM experience for both patients and providers?
A. You’ve got to understand what your customers’ needs are and then determine how you make it easy for their patients to work with our technology and receive the level of service and functionality that they need. We listen carefully to our salespeople and what their customers are looking for. Our own operational leaders and employees, the people who use the systems, provide us with feedback as well, as far as what they’re seeing and experiencing. We also have a wealth of data from different areas that we can access. Taking all that, we then try to understand how we can improve the technology further to make it more effective for everyone’s purposes.
Q. Since healthcare evolves so quickly, how do you foster a consistent culture of innovation within your department?
A. For us, innovation is thinking about where we need to be in the future. Let’s say we want to be somewhere in 12 months’ time from a technology standpoint; we need to be doing whatever it is right now, because that could realistically be how long it’s going to take to get to market and be prepared to launch. So, we look at current solutions and where the industry’s going and plan accordingly to make sure we stay ahead.
Q. What are some significant challenges facing hospitals and healthcare systems today, and how can technology help overcome them?
A. Our customers are all facing the same problems: the cost of healthcare continues to rise, and the ability to attract talent is becoming more and more difficult. Trying to find the right-skilled people to operate in the spaces we work in, those people are in high demand. It’s quicker and easier for our customers to find an outside vendor like Meduit with our own solution than to try and build the technology themselves. And as I mentioned, the fact that we do bad debt, early out, and the insurance piece makes our solution pretty appealing.
Q. What are some of the technology solutions you’re working on to meet the current and future needs of Meduit clients?
A. We’re investing more in AI capabilities, particularly conversational AI. We’re also focusing more heavily on the digitization of the services we provide, so moving away from paper distribution and expanding our text and email platform. Because that’s more convenient for patients and it’s more cost-effective overall. If you get a piece of paper saying you owe a provider money, you’d have to call between nine and five and talk to someone, whereas it’s likely easier for you to be able to respond to a text at 9:00 at night and do it when you’re home from work versus trying to make time in your day.
Q. Meduit provides a tech-powered solution that also relies on the RCM expertise of Meduit employees. What’s the ideal way for the two to integrate?
A. Conversational AI is a good example. Instead of our call-center staff calling 54 people in an hour and getting through to a few, SARA (Supervised Autonomous Revenue Associate), our AI tool, can call 54 people, get through to a few, and then take them through the process of paying their bill without ever having to talk to someone, and it works 24/7/365. Or SARA can pass a customer along to the call center, so their time is better spent.
Q. Is there a specific technology or project that you’re working on at Meduit that you’re particularly excited about?
A. Yes, but I don’t know if going into detail right here is a great idea (laughs). If you put too much out there, people tend to pick up on it. I’ll just say I’m very excited for the future and I think there are big things ahead.
Chris Harding is a proven IT professional with over 30 years of experience, including over two decades in healthcare. Chris has a distinguished technology background that includes leading departments in several Fortune 50 companies. Originally from Australia, Chris has exchanged one set of amazing beaches for another, as he now resides in the Sunshine State of Florida.