Cathy Sales

Cathy has more than 18 years of experience in revenue cycle management and healthcare consulting for academic medical centers, multifacility health systems, community hospitals, physician group practices and skilled nursing communities. She specializes in operational redesign, process improvement, system optimization, cash acceleration and consolidation initiatives for her clients.

About Cathy

Cathy has a successful history of overseeing project execution, implementing new processes, driving culture change and partnering with her clients to solve business problems. She has specific expertise in patient access, case management, health information management, billing, collections, denials and vendor management.

Throughout her career, Cathy has:

• Directed the creation of standardized revenue cycle reporting and health information system (HIS) workflow modifications to drive and measure performance improvement across a large, multifacility system serving the West Coast.
• Led a comprehensive revenue cycle improvement engagement at a $1.8 billion health system in New York that resulted in more than $24 million in annual recurring net revenue benefit.
• Served as the interim revenue cycle leader of 29 skilled nursing, independent living and assisted living communities for more than 10 months, where she established core weekly and monthly performance reporting, realigned patient accounting staff, oversaw the operational aspects of acquiring and divesting senior communities, created new training material and streamlined processes for management and staff.
• Overseen end-to-end revenue cycle redesign, standardization, and centralization planning for an eight-hospital, $3.5 billion net patient revenue system that included academic medical centers, community hospitals, a faculty practice and community physician offices, resulting in $91.7 million in annual recurring benefit through a robust denial management process, standardization of revenue cycle policies, procedures and processes across facilities, a systemwide accountability structure, and Epic workflow and reporting optimization.
• Directed the implementation of revenue cycle process improvements across a 14-hospital, $1.6 billion net patient revenue system, driving consistency and financial stability in both patient access and patient financial services areas across all entities, leading to $51 million in annualized recurring benefit.
• Enhanced financial clearance processes, reduced authorization and timely filing write-offs, and improved workflow improvement across the revenue cycle for a $725 million net patient revenue, three-hospital system and physician organization in the Southeast, resulting in recurring annual benefit of $17.5 million for the system.
• Managed a process improvement project to optimize patient access and patient accounting functions for a 280-bed regional medical center in the Southeast, resulting in $6.5 million in annual recurring benefit and $1 million in one-time cash acceleration.

Cathy holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Cathy is a member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).