Transforming Revenue Cycle Through Innovation and AI with Heather Dunn
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In this episode of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, Andrew Pass interviews Heather Dunn, Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer at Novant Health, about her transformative approach to the revenue cycle through innovation and AI. Dunn shares her journey into healthcare revenue cycle leadership, emphasizing her passion for solving complex challenges in the industry. She highlights her first-year achievements at Novant Health, including a complete operating model redesign that separates day-to-day operations from transformation initiatives through centers of excellence. A key focus is on team satisfaction, automation, and aligning clinical and financial goals through a 'team of teams' model. Dunn also discusses critical trends like patient affordability, price transparency, and the growing importance of financial wellness in patient care. She expresses particular excitement about implementing voice AI to improve patient access, streamline billing inquiries, and provide 24/7 support—signaling a major leap in patient engagement and operational efficiency.
Redesign revenue cycle operations by separating transformation from daily operations using centers of excellence.
Measure success not just by traditional KPIs like AR days and cost to collect, but also by team member satisfaction.
Adopt a 'team of teams' model to align revenue cycle efforts with clinical institutes for better specialty-specific outcomes.
Invest in automation (RPA), Epic system optimization, and process redesign to manage growth without increasing costs.
Leverage voice AI for 24/7 patient support—handling scheduling, billing, and benefit questions with conversational, learning capabilities.
Introduction and Background
Andrew Pass introduces Heather Dunn, Novant Health's Chief Revenue Officer, and begins with her professional journey into healthcare revenue cycle leadership, highlighting her accidental entry and passion for solving systemic challenges.
Transformation Through Innovation
“You don't always get that in health care. It moves a little bit slower at times. Whiteboard of imagination is not always there, but it exists here at Novant Health.”
Operating Model Redesign
Dunn outlines the structural changes made, including centers of excellence for access, clinical, shared services, and back-office functions, with transformation led by a separate leader focused on future-state goals.
Measuring Success Beyond KPIs
“We've really been leaning in on if you're going to invest in technology and it's going to help to make you more efficient, then where are we really going to find the savings?”
Overcoming Capacity Constraints
“We're sort of like adopted that team of teams approach... and started to manage their AR along with them in the way that they needed to.”
“You don't always get that in health care. It moves a little bit slower at times. Whiteboard of imagination is not always there, but it exists here at Novant Health.”
“We're sort of like adopted that team of teams approach... and started to manage their AR along with them in the way that they needed to.”
“It's also consistent and consistently handling calls in a way that we would want our patients to interact with our health system.”
Host
Guest
Novant Health
organization
Heather Dunn
person
Epic
product
RPA
other
Domino's
brand
ACA
other
Medicaid
other
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