What brain synapses are firing for revenue cycle leaders? 

Several years ago, we unveiled the healthcare CFO Mind Map at one of our annual healthcare summits. The CFO Mind Map is our attempt to visualize all the synapses in a healthcare CFO’s brain. Each synapse represents a specific task, function, or responsibility on healthcare CFOs’ plates.

The synapses fall into nine broad categories: 

• Capital planning 
• Finance 
• Information technology 
• Managed care 
• Managerial accounting and reporting 
• Planning and forecasting 
• Revenue cycle 
• Taxes 
• And the always popular “other” 

We update the CFO Mind Map regularly as we gather new insights from the hospitals, health systems, and medical practices with whom we work. You can download the latest iteration of the mind map here. 

We’ll be gathering new insights for the revenue cycle synapses during our upcoming fall Kodiak Revenue Circle event. We’re hosting this members-only event for Kodiak Platform users at the Grand Bohemian Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, Nov. 9-11. For more information on the fall Kodiak Revenue Circle, click here.  

As a pre-event exercise, we asked attendees what was top of mind for them right now. Their responses will help shape the conversations we’ll have at the fall Revenue Circle. But there’s no reason not to share the results of our attendee survey with you now.  

Automation and workflow optimization 

By far, the topic attendees want to talk about most at the upcoming Revenue Circle event is automation and workflow optimization. They want to discuss how they can get more out of their revenue cycle departments without adding additional resources.  

Almost all the attendees said their organizations are using AI technology to perform specific revenue cycle functions and optimize their workflow. Those revenue cycle tasks include clinical documentation, clinical documentation integrity, coding, prior authorizations, denials management, insurance benefits verification, and appeals. 

Getting “more” out of their revenue cycle departments, whether it’s through AI technology or another way, is possible, as we quantified in our May quarterly revenue cycle KPI benchmarking report. The report, which you can download here, compared the performance of Kodiak Platform users on eight different revenue cycle key performance indicators. There is a gap between top performers and the average for all users on the KPIs—a gap they hope to fill with automation and workflow optimization. 

Relatedly, peer benchmarking is also a hot topic attendees want to discuss. They say what gets measured gets managed, and if you want to manage—and improve—your revenue cycle performance, it starts with knowing where you stand compared to your peer provider organizations. 

Other topics the attendees want to discuss include financial performance strategies, policy impact and compliance, and deep dives into Kodiak products and product use cases. 

OBBBA on the brain 

Those headed to the fall Revenue Circle event in Charleston aren’t just thinking about internal process improvement but external issues affecting their revenue cycle performance as well. 

Not surprisingly, topping the list of external concerns is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and how provisions of the OBBBA will affect their organizations financially. The law will reduce budgeted federal healthcare spending by more than $1 trillion by 2034. How much of that money will come from the balance sheets of hospitals, health systems, and medical practices remains to be seen.  

The various provisions in the OBBBA that experts predict will reduce Medicaid enrollment are attendees’ top OBBBA concern. We did some scenario planning in our August quarterly revenue cycle KPI benchmarking report. The report, which you can download here, quantified how four escalating Medicaid disenrollment scenarios would affect the net revenue and net income of a typical hospital. 

Other external topics that are top of mind for Revenue Circle attendees include payors’ PA reform pledge, payor mix generally, and regulatory compliance. My colleague Matt Szaflarski wrote about payors’ PA reform pledge in “Prior authorization is having a moment. Are you?” I strongly encourage you to check it out. 

Based on our pre-event attendee survey, revenue cycle leaders coming to the Revenue Circle certainly do have a lot on their minds, giving us a lot to talk about and share with you in our post-event content following the event. 

To paraphrase Police Chief Martin Brody in the movie “Jaws,” we’re going to need a bigger CFO Mind Map.