PHOEBE PUTNEY REVENUE CYCLE VP'S ADVICE: REVIEW METRICS WITH YOUR TEAM WEEKLY

Jane Gray brings nearly 30 years of hospital financial experience to her role as vice president of revenue cycle at Albany, Ga.-based Phoebe Putney Health System.Q: If you could offer other hospital revenue cycle leaders a piece of advice, what would it be?JG: I’m big on weekly review of metrics. We’ve gotten into a rhythm where we review operational performance every week, whether we need it or not. Our entire management team gets together for a couple hours to review performance against preset targets for each major function of each area — it holds people accountable. Having to explain their data among a group of their peers drives managers to understand what is going on in their areas and stay on top of the important metrics. After three weeks of negative trending, they have to come back with a performance improvement plan. In the past, we took a more traditional stance and looked at our financial numbers after month end. But in the revenue cycle, once the month is gone it’s too late. Let’s look at it on a weekly basis so if we need to pivot and make an adjustment, we can do that and still have a strong month.

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