Veradigm Supports Independent Orthopedic Practice With Revenue Cycle Excellence

Healthcare practices have many reasons for changing to a new electronic health record (EHR) system. The new system may better suit their needs or offer more robust features. It might provide a superior user interface. Or the practice may be motivated by the need to integrate more easily with other healthcare practices in regional or hospital systems. And making this type of change can have many positive benefits, such as increasing provider productivity and workflow efficiencies. Unfortunately, the costs associated with switching EHRs are nearly always much higher than anticipated.

One of those unanticipated costs can be the expense of working with a new billing company or even completely reworking the practice's existing system for revenue cycle management. That's because when a practice switches to a new EHR system, their previous billing company may not be willing or able to work with it. The biller may even try to convince you to continue using the old system to track billing information. However, accepting this compromise means losing the benefits of an integrated system that can consolidate patient service and billing data within a single patient account.

Alternatively, the new EHR might include a new billing system. It may come with the assumption that the practice will switch from its existing system for revenue cycle management-no matter how effective that system may have been for them-and use the system associated with the new EHR. However, doing so will entail an even greater cost in terms of lost time and productivity, as practice members will need to learn a new financial system and the new EHR interface.

These were the issues faced by California Orthopedic and Spine, a mix of physicians and healthcare professionals dedicated to providing the highest level of orthopedic and sports care to the North San Francisco Bay Area.

In 2019, California Ortho made the decision to transition their practice to the EHR system used by the extensive regional health system of which they were members, EHR Community Connect EHR. While this move was important for streamlining communications with other health system members, practice leadership was concerned that transitioning to a new EHR could reduce or eliminate the significant improvements in the revenue cycle results they had made over the last several years. This progress had been the result of the practice's close collaboration with Veradigm and their dedicated team of Revenue Cycle Services (RCS) experts.

The team at CA Ortho wanted to continue their highly effective work with Veradigm's revenue cycle management services and solutions. However, they required revenue cycle management services that would integrate directly with the new Epic EHR system.

Read on to learn how Veradigm worked with California Ortho to support their transition to Epic EHR while maintaining revenue cycle services for the practice and directly integrating Veradigm RCS with the new Epic system to ensure they had no falloff in performance.

From the start of the transition to the new EHR system, the Veradigm EPIC project management team actively supported and participated in the system implementation to ensure the build supported the practice's specific revenue cycle needs. This paper recounts California Ortho's successful collaboration with Veradigm to maintain, and even improve, their revenue cycle improvements as they transitioned to a new EHR system. Their successes include:

• Maintaining their close partnership with Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services to continue vigilant revenue cycle management
• Simultaneous integration of Veradigm RCS into their new Epic system
• And a smooth transition, decreasing the delayed revenue, denials, and risks that frequently accompany a practice's change of billing systems

Learn how Veradigm leveraged a combination of close collaboration, industry expertise, deep experience with practices using Epic EHR, and vigilant monitoring of revenue cycle metrics to help California Orthopedic & Spine optimize its system workflow for revenue cycle excellence, both now and in the future.