SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sept. 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alpha Health, the first Unified Automation™ company for revenue cycle management in healthcare, released results of a national survey designed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on revenue cycle operations at health systems and hospitals across the U.S. Results demonstrate the majority of organizations intend to restructure their revenue cycle operations in response to shifting business dynamics driven by the pandemic.
The survey was commissioned by Alpha Health and conducted through the Healthcare Financial Management Association's (HFMA) Pulse Survey program. The survey was fielded between May 19, 2020 and June 22, 2020 among 587 chief financial officers and revenue cycle leaders at hospitals and health systems across the United States. The survey has a confidence level of 95 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.
"COVID-19 has placed healthcare organizations under tremendous financial pressure, driving a need for increased efficiency and cost restructuring. At the same time, revenue cycle teams are facing unpredictable and volatile workloads," said Malinka Walaliyadde, co-founder and CEO of Alpha Health. "These dynamics are leading more organizations to adopt work-from-home practices permanently and to embrace automation to make their revenue cycle operations more resilient and flexible."
According to the survey, larger healthcare providers with $1B - $10B net patient revenues; organizations that have experience with or currently use automation; and health systems (versus hospitals) are statistically more likely to restructure their revenue cycle operations to increase permanent work-from-home staffing post-pandemic.
Survey respondents were asked, "Based on how COVID-19 has impacted your organization, do you expect to permanently change the structure of your revenue cycle organization?"
Plan for more work-from-home permanently
32.4%
No plans to change organization or staffing approach
25.0%
No change to staffing approach, but will keep tools and processes to enable quick transition to remote work
23.3%
Plan to automate more functions for business continuity
14.2%
Other, please specify
5.1%
Health systems and hospitals that have experience with or currently use automation in their revenue cycle operations are more likely to have employees work from home permanently.
Have never used automation
Do not use automation anymore
Use automation
Plan for more work-from-home permanently
19.4%
40.0%
43.0%
No plans to change organization or staffing approach
28.6%
40.0%
21.5%
No change to staffing approach, but will maintain tools and processes to enable quick transition to remote work
27.6%
10.0%
19.3%
Plan to automate more functions for business continuity
17.3%
0%
11.9%
Other, please specify
7.1%
10.0%
4.4%
Health systems are more likely than hospitals to restructure their revenue cycle operations to allow more employees to work from home permanently.
Health System
Hospital
Plan for more work-from-home permanently
35.7%
31.1%
No plans to change organization or staffing approach
17.9%
27.8%
No change to staffing approach, but will maintain tools and processes to enable quick transition to remote work
21.4
24.1%
Plan to automate more functions for business continuity
19.0%
12.3%
Other, please specify
6.0%
4.7%
Larger organizations, with $1B to $10B net patient revenue, are more likely than others to restructure their revenue cycle operations to allow more employees to work from home permanently.
<$500 M
$500 M - $1 B
$1 B - $10 B
> $10 B
Plan for more work-from-home permanently
23.8%
34.9%
53.4%
25.0%
No plans to change organization or staffing approach
36.1%
23.3%
6.8%
25.0%
No change to staffing approach, but will maintain tools and processes to enable quick transition to remote work
25.2%
16.3%
21.9%
25.0%
Plan to automate more functions for business continuity
10.2%
20.9%
12.3%
25.0%
Other, please specify
4.8%
4.7%
5.5%
0.0%
About Alpha Health At Alpha Health we believe every dollar spent on healthcare matters because healthcare matters to everyone. The first Unified Automation™ company for healthcare, Alpha Health uses the same machine learning approaches that made driverless cars possible to provide health systems with a single solution for revenue cycle management (RCM). Alpha Health's proprietary Unified Automation™ technology operates within a healthcare system's existing electronic health record and revenue cycle infrastructure. Alpha Health's Unified Automation™ brings together the best of people, data and technology to efficiently, accurately and autonomously navigate the complex state of medical reimbursement in the United States. This enables health systems to reduce their cost of care and be better stewards of the healthcare dollar. Alpha Health is based in the heart of Silicon Valley. Learn more at www.alphahealth.com.
Media Contact Catherine Afarian Alpha Health Head of Corporate Communications 408.656.8872 [email protected]
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