NaviNet's observations and takeaways from this year's HFMA ANI

The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) ANI Conference finished its annual run on June 23rd in Las Vegas

. The leading healthcare financial executive industry organization had no shortage of issues on its plate this year, with many implications and takeaways for healthcare IT providers.

The most pressing issue at hand should come as no surprise. As past ANI speaker James Carville would bluntly put it: "It's the economy, stupid." Healthcare organizations remain concerned about capital funding issues and rising debt amidst a difficult economic environment. Adding to the concern is Congress' Healthcare Reform Bill. Many healthcare organizations remain unsure that they can revamp their business models and implement payment reform fast enough. Credit rating agency Moody's told participants that this one-two punch would likely lead to many more credit downgrades for hospitals.

Fortunately, opportunities are still abound. As keynote speaker Richard Clarke noted, spending for EHR and technological infrastructure will remain high this year (see slide 11). Healthcare technology investments are seen as a powerful tool to cut costs and improve organizational efficiency. On issue after issue, leaders described their need for new solutions. For instance, at the much talked about Medicaid bundled-payment demonstration, participant Debbie Welle-Powell of Exempla Healthcare noted: "The underbelly of making this work is administratively being able to pay the claim."

While healthcare CFOs clearly recognize that these solutions are necessary, they don't always know how to go about implementing them, particularly against the backdrop of the new legislation. As Clarke promptly noted in his opening statement: "This year's ANI is a great opportunity to network with people from around the country and talk with them about what is this law, and how will it affect me." This highlights a need for healthcare IT firms to point out how their solutions can ease the burden of these new regulations.

One session that stood out for us this year was the discussion lead by Daniel J. Marino and James Valek from Vista Family Medicine "Engaging Staff in EMR Implementation." It provided the often-missing view of the healthcare provider and the challenges that providers face in identifying, selecting and adopting new technologies such as EMR. It was eye-opening and refreshing to hear a physician describe the process of learning a whole new vocabulary and the need for healthcare technology providers to be both patient and supportive in this learning process.

The conference also clearly showed that much more communication between solution providers and financial decision makers on a more general level is needed. As Healthcare Informatics Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland wrote in his blog, the conference highlighted the need for hospital CFOs across the country to embrace and adopt best practices and tools such as proven Revenue Cycle Management solutions. With that in mind, some companies are being very active in highlighting their value propositions.

Collecting at the point of sale was another recurring theme throughout the event. One session led by Alexian Brothers, around effective POS collection identified a number of best practices. Although some could easily be viewed as controversial (e.g. such as using mobile swipe devices to collect debt during bed rest), others, such as incentivizing staff with creative contests and having the systems available to calculate patient debt certainly resonated with NaviNet's own findings and recommendations.

The patient point of view was also supported by the presence of leading companies such as Intuit who demoed their Health Expense Tracker - http://healthcare.intuit.com/. We were encouraged to see that all stakeholders in the healthcare reform had their voice heard at such an important summit for our industry as HFMA.

NaviNet parted Las Vegas even more energized about our vision for the future and even more excited about our ability to build the unified patient information management system of the future. As always, we welcome your observations, responses and ideas about HFMA as well as the key industry topics shaping our industry today. Post your reactions to this blog post, comment on our Facebook page, or send us your tips on Twitter.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Labow

Chief Marketing Officer

NaviNet's observations and takeaways from this year's HFMA ANI

By: NaviNet Inc

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