3 Best Practices for Navigating RCM Partnerships

One exec shares three best practices for revenue cycle leaders when looking to partner with a vendor.

The large number of revenue cycle management vendors alone can be overwhelming for organizations when considering potential partnerships. Whether they boast a suite of tools or the ability to tailor solutions to your organization’s needs, it’s important that leaders and decision makers thoroughly weigh their options before making the investment.

Here are three best practices for revenue cycle leaders to keep in mind when looking to partner with a vendor.

Cultural alignment

A people first perspective drove the decision-making process for VHC Health when the system began looking at RCM vendors to partner with. With rev tech constantly evolving, there’s excitement in the newness, but according to John Zabrowski, it must be the right cultural fit.

“It’s fun to be in the middle of creating and leveraging new technology, but I would argue the best practice on the front end is to really understand the culture of the organization you’re working with,” he said.

VHC Health ultimately decided to partner with a vendor they had an already had a relationship with, which Zabrowski previously said "just made a lot of sense."

Presentation vs. performance

Though vendors may claim their solutions can produce certain results, it’s important for executives and other decision makers at the table to take their organizations needs and data into consideration – and make sure the vendors do as well.

“If you’re not comfortable that the people that you’re talking to about such a deep relationship haven’t taken the time to really dig into the data and to understand your AR, your payers, your process,” Zabrowski said. “I would argue that’s a read flag you should be careful of.”

Third party perspective

VHC Health worked with a consultant while they evaluated different vendors, which Zabrowski said gave executives and decision makers a more accurate view of them outside of their presentations.

“Having that sounding board riding shotgun with you on such a big transaction, I think, is an exceptionally good idea,” he said. “Especially if you don't have history with these companies. They all do very similar work and you've got to find the one that is going to actually bring value to your organization.”