Opportunity

Northwell Health Labs (NHL) is a business unit of Northwell Health. As such, NHL is expected to manage to a budget and contribute to the Northwell Health network’s bottom line. Therefore, strong cash flow and transparency are vital to NHL. Prior to transitioning to XiFin, NHL relied on an external billing service for 15 years. This reliance on an external service led to poor levels of transparency, data and reporting. With 40% year over year outreach services revenue growth, the organization needed a solution that would scale with it. As a result, NHL wanted to take control of its own revenue cycle management (RCM) to better meet its business goals. The key priorities for NHL were:

• A need for better visibility into laboratory data
• Better revenue capture for performed laboratory work
• A good interface with the laboratory information system (LIS).

Solution

The NHL team preferred not to build and maintain its own RCM system. It wanted more control over the billing and reimbursement process without the time and investment required for most in-house billing systems. NHL selected XiFin RPM due to its automation, remote hosting, and limited staff requirements. NHL noted that XiFin offered “an RCM system you can run a large business with, with a few people.”

To maximize the benefits of its XiFin RPM implementation, NHL upgraded its LIS interface from paper-based to an electronic format. XiFin RPM was configured to meet NHL’s specific needs and business goals. Team members appreciated that they could now manage important, client-facing activities themselves while continuing to outsource other parts of the RCM process.

With XiFin RPM, different groups at NHL work on different tasks to ensure charges are captured correctly and clean claims are submitted quickly to minimize errors and denials. The organization leverages web services for online payment functionality as well as connectivity with other systems to 1) ensure data is as complete and accurate as possible and 2) maximize automation throughout the RCM process.

Results

While the NHL team had originally focused primarily on FTE count as a measure of success, it soon learned that metrics such as cost of billing and days sales outstanding (DSO) are better measures of the laboratory’s improved performance. NHL saw marked improvements in lab RCM outcomes over the first year, namely a reduction in DSO and receivables management.

The NHL team found XiFin to be a good working partner, noting that XiFin is open to enhancement suggestions and receptive to client requests. The relationship with XiFin is a good partnership with both entities looking to continue to succeed and grow.