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Loma Linda University Medical Center is an academic Medical Center and five-facility health system, including a children’s hospital and behavioral medicine facility, with over 900 licensed beds. Loma Linda has partnered with Huron Healthcare for more than 23 years.

Challenge

Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC) engaged Huron Healthcare to stabilize and enhance revenue cycle performance as they embarked on an EMR conversion, and to operationalize the installation to ensure the new electronic medical records (EMR) would support LLUMC’s processes. LLUMC also sought to increase integration across the health system, as well as refine overall revenue strategy, organizational vision and operational and financial execution.

Approach

Huron worked side-by-side with LLUMC to mitigate the financial and operation risks associated with a complex EMR conversion. The project focused on maintaining and improving A/R performance and increasing system-wide integration; vetting, testing, and training; and incorporating best practice revenue cycle operations into the EMR.

According to Jose Belmontes, executive director of the LLUMC hospital billing department, “Huron’s flexible, collaborative solutions allowed our revenue cycle and billing teams to stay focused on cash efforts, rather than research and planning for EMR conversion. The project met our goals 100 percent.”

Improving revenue cycle performance: Huron worked with LLUMC to expedite and improve cash collections by implementing a self-pay strategy, a low-dollar insurance follow-up solution and enhanced denials management and reporting solutions. By balancing EMR conversion activities with a focus on cash and key performance indicators, billing work in process was reduced by $40 million, ensuring LLUMC was financially prepared for the impending conversion.

Supporting EMR implementation: By designing and integrating optimal revenue cycle workflows into the EMR model, Huron helped LLUMC prepare for a seamless conversion. This included a testing and training strategy to ensure continuity of revenue cycle activities during and after the conversion.

Increasing system-wide integration: Huron helped design a centralized authorization procurement unit and scheduling registration solution to go live with the new EMR, improving integration between the hospital and medical group operations. Huron supported LLUMC in the solution development, operational workflows and technology setup to initiate a centralized authorization group, with over 60 staff supporting authorization procurement for more than 30 departments.

Implementing an A/R conversion strategy: To ensure resolution of legacy A/R after the conversion, Huron designed and implemented a dashboard solution with work drivers that allowed staff to manage new and old A/R from one dashboard. Huron also developed a vendor approach to sunset legacy A/R, assessing vendor solutions and developing a reporting tool to drive vendor accountability.