How Crisis Spurred a Patient-Centric Rev Cycle Strategy at OhioHealth

The Change Healthcare cyberattack wreaked havoc throughout the healthcare industry, but it served as a catalyst to accelerate a strategic shift at OhioHealth.

The Change Healthcare cyberattack in early 2024 sent a shockwave through the industry. While other provider organizations scrambled for solutions, it served as an unexpected catalyst for OhioHealth.

Prior to the incident, OhioHealth had been reassessing its relationships with revenue cycle technology vendors with the intention of diversifying its vendor portfolio. When the cyberattack occurred, the health system had already vetted vendors and selected Experian Health as a new front-end partner to help improve real-time eligibility verification and reduce eligibility-based denials.

"We were looking to diversify our portfolio and our vendor strategy prior to the incident," says Girish Dighe, system vice president of revenue cycle at OhioHealth. "It just accelerated everything."

The transition took on a new sense of urgency following the cyberattack, requiring an "all-hands-on deck" approach from both sides. However, while OhioHealth is only about one year into the new partnership, the health system has already realized a strong return on its investment in a new front-end revenue cycle platform. Eligibility-based denials decreased by about one-third, according to Dighe.

A focus on the financial experience

This push for a new front-end technology was driven by a core strategic pillar for OhioHealth: the patient financial experience. In this modern era of consumerism, a patient's financial journey is often nearly as important as the clinical care they receive.

"You can have a great clinical outcome, but if your financial experience is not good, that doesn't mean that patient is going to come back to OhioHealth, even if they did get a good clinical outcome," Dighe says.

This understanding has driven the health system to hone in on the ways it can get the front end of the revenue cycle right. Errors in eligibility and coverage verification cause a cascade of downstream problems, including claim denials, delays in cash flow, and increases in bad debt.

"If you get it right up front, you're sending a clean claim out the door for us to collect on and for the patient's responsibility to be accurate," Dighe says. 

A well-informed patient is a happier patient

OhioHealth has, like many other health systems, engaged in efforts to simplify payments for patients. The health system offers flexible payment plans, two-way texting for billing questions, and multiple vehicles for payments, including digital payments.

These are important to patients, but OhioHealth has learned that these are not always the top concern for patients. While overall out-of-pocket costs are certainly significant, they aren't necessarily the primary focus for most patients either. The consumer experience team at OhioHealth determined that what patients really want is clarity.

"We wanted to identify what is truly the problem when it comes to patients affording their care," Dighe says. "It is it affordability? Is it accessibility? Is it even just understanding? What we found is that patients just want to be well-informed and better-informed about their healthcare payments."

This insight has led OhioHealth to build a technology-enabled, front-end strategy around patient education, ensuring patients understand the entire billing cycle, including how many bills they might receive and how much they will owe. Reliable data upfront prevents confusion down the line and creates the foundation for a better overall experience.

"A well-informed patient is going to be a happier patient that's going to be able to seek care," Dighe says.