Katie LeBlanc is vice president, revenue cycle, at Banner Health, a health system based in Phoenix, Arizona. Kodiak Solutions recognized Banner Health with its 2023 Revenue Cycle Performance Award, presented at Kodiak’s 2024 Healthcare Virtual Symposium.

Please meet one of the many people behind the performance.

Age

49

Tenure with organization

Started in May 2024

Reports to

CFO

Number of direct reports

Five

Number of care sites reporting revenue

32 acute-care facilities and more than 400 service locations

Annual revenue cycle budget

$264 million

Number of revenue cycle FTEs

2,974

Work modality

Hybrid

Patient accounting system

MS4 for acute; NextGen for ambulatory

Number of revenue cycle vendors

More than 30

Fully outsources revenue cycle or in-house revenue cycle team

In-house

Cross-department relationships

Office of the CFO

Biggest external revenue cycle challenge

Payer behavior. In 2023, we encountered increases in clinical denials, errors in payment processing, and changes in reimbursement policies. These challenges create more administrative work and costs for our organization. It also places more of our revenue at risk. Denials, payor payment delay tactics.

Solution to external challenge

Coordination with managed-care team and payer contacts. It's important to establish collaborative working relationships with both your managed-care team and payers. We take this seriously and continue to look for new ways to collaborate with our payors. This enables our organization to develop solutions to address problems.

Biggest internal revenue cycle challenge

Cost control. Healthcare organizations must effectively manage costs to continue to drive margin.

Solution to internal challenge

Continue to invest in our talent, select the right vendor partners and leverage technology to elevate productivity.

Describe your organization’s relationship with payors in one word

Improving

Favorite revenue cycle KPI

Cash relief of AR (accounts receivable). This is a good indicator for determining if you are resolving more of your AR in cash as opposed to adjustments. It can be a signal that your revenue is becoming more or less valuable.

Least favorite revenue cycle KPI

Initial denial rates. Initial denial rates are a good indicator of additional work your revenue cycle team is responsible for. However, it is not a good indicator of how much of your revenue is at risk. Often times initial denials can be misleading. We've received initial denials and payment in full at the same time!

How automated is your revenue cycle?

Modestly. We've leveraged robotics to handle repetitive manual tasks. However, with the technology available today, there is more opportunity for us to leverage automation to complete more complex tasks.

How clinically integrated is your revenue cycle?

Average for the industry.

If you could change one thing about the Healthcare revenue cycle, it would be...

Misaligned incentive between providers and patients that ultimately lead to unnecessary administrative tasks and often create a negative patient financial experience.