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Technology departments in healthcare organizations are slammed every day with requests that take the form of solutions to specific problems from a specific point of view: Put the Bill Pay button at the top of the patient portal. Create a Pneumonia Admission Order Set. Make the PCP field required. Implementing each of these point solutions takes more time than people have, but they also may not address the problem the requestor intended to solve or worse yet create more problems for others.
Early in my career I was given a refrain I’ve used ever since. When someone comes to you with a request no matter what it is immediately ask, “What’s the problem you’re trying to solve?” Some people are taken aback by it. Some are shocked to find out they can’t articulate the answer. After some discussion though you’ll get a good sense of the issue – from the requestor’s perspective. The Bill Pay button example above would be an entirely reasonable request from someone responsible for revenue management. The higher something is placed in a digital experience the higher the engagement and presumably the faster the revenue capture. So, that requested solution solves the problem of slow revenue, right?
Maybe. To be true, the cause of slow revenue must be that patients intend to pay their bills quickly but are unaware of how. That could be true. It may also be true that most patients already understand they owe money but don’t have the funds on hand to do it quickly. It may also be true that patients aren’t using the portal for anything much less paying bills. It may also be true that there’s an inefficiency in the technical or accounting mechanisms used on the back end. It may also be true that if 100% of all patients with current outstanding bills paid immediately that revenue capture would still be insufficient to meet cash flow needs. It may also be true that moving the Bill Pay button up the button to schedule care is moved down which results in fewer appointments and LOST revenue. How do we figure out what’s true?
One way is a Service Design Workshop using Experience Blueprints. Put simply this is an exercise where you map out an entire flow and document everything involved. In this instance you could list all the steps from a bill being generated to when it is collected and recognized. Who is involved in each step? What processes exist for each step? What technology is used for each step? What policies impact each step? Getting everyone involved in a flow together and writing this all out may sound tedious, but invariably people find the exercise worthwhile as it generates insights for everyone involved. A patient may explain that they don’t pay the bill because they don’t understand it. An EHR Analyst may clarify that the system only updates at Midnight. An accountant may finally be able to share a process idea that they’ve been waiting for someone to ask them about.
Ensuring that you understand the actual problems you’re trying to solve and how things operate across teams and systems is the first step to making sure you’re spending your limited resources on the right tasks. Next week: How are you measuring?
If you’re interested in making these ideas a reality we can help. Contact us here and we can get started understanding where you are, where you want to go, and how we can help you specifically.
