The Biggest Problems in Healthcare in 2023 and How Automation Can Help Solve Them

I recently sat down with a 20 year healthcare veteran who has worked at some major health systems and has been a senior executive within a healthcare automation firm. We discussed the challenges and root causes of why healthcare systems are facing some major challenges.

We also discussed where the opportunities were around creating breakthrough technologies to help health systems thrive and ultimately allow them to provide a higher level of care to their patients.

Let’s start with the first problem causing challenges in the healthcare space.

Healthcare Resource Availability

Clinicians are extremely burnt out from an influx of people entering their health systems post-COVID.

So many surgeries and procedures were put on hold during the pandemic, and now an influx of surgeries and procedures are finally happening.

This is causing people in the medical field to be massively overworked and stressed. Employees are quitting and even moving into completely different fields.

The pandemic really pushed people over the edge and contributed to a lack of interest in joining/staying in medical field.

Student loans have become so expensive that more and more students are looking for careers elsewhere. This is one of the reasons why there is a shortage of nurses, doctors, and clinicians.

On top of that, people in the medical field are overworked because they are working longer in their careers. For example, a typical radiologist is between the age of 55-65.

Gone are the days where people retire at 50. Professionals are working well into their 60’s and even 70’s.

Other root causes of resource availability is that the great resignation is causing people in general not to work.

A lot of health systems are offering huge sign-on bonuses and higher wages to try and attract people to join their organizations.

Due to the shortages, doctors are giving more responsibility to clinicians in functions that they had historically only personally conducted.

Healthcare’s Reimbursement

Other than health systems being short-staffed, revenue cycle management (or reimbursement) is causing health providers serious challenges.

Essential processes – such as revenue cycle management – are the lifeblood of health systems. Most health systems rely on getting reimbursed for care from health insurance companies.

If you’ve been in the healthcare space, you know there is a love-hate relationship between providers and payers.

Some payers make it incredibly difficult for providers to receive reimbursement. This is one of the reasons why emerging technology solutions such as Robotic Process Automation are a game-changer for providers.

In short, health providers face challenges when it comes to receiving reimbursement and is not a completely reliable method of revenue generation.

Manual Repetitive Work Within Healthcare

Functions within Revenue Cycle Management or billing being automated can help speed up reimbursement by days or even weeks. This alone is a massive benefit for health providers. RPA can help lower denials and increase a hospital or health system’s revenue by 15-20% annually.

The joy of practicing medicine has shifted due to having to spend so much time doing manual repetitive tasks.

M&A Consolidation within Healthcare

Another trend we are seeing within healthcare is that larger players are acquiring smaller players, partially due to hitting hard times during COVID.

An emerging operational challenge is that companies are not on the same workflow and want to standardize processes.

For example, a smaller company might have completely different workflows or run on different technology than a larger health system.

Automation & Technology Growth

Trends are moving towards disruptive models such as RPA and Telemedicine.

Companies such as Forward are creating new businesses where people can receive care without having to go into a physical hospital.

RPA is saving the day by automating manual workflows like Revenue Cycle Management, medical coding, and other manual repetitive tasks so nurses, doctors, and other clinicians can focus on driving a better patient experience.

As automation expands, health systems are getting access to data that is essential to improve patient experience.

Clinical research has traditionally been extremely expensive, and much of the data hasn’t historically been available.

Thanks to advances in machine learning technology and RPA, we are starting to get access to this data faster than ever before. Thanks to robotic process automation, the time to reimbursement has decreased significantly.

Having the right documentation to share with third-party payers has become substantially easier thanks to RPA and AI.

How Stealth Scaling Is Saving Healthcare

Stealth Scaling is an intelligent automation-as-a-service company that helps healthcare companies completely automate manual repetitive processes by leveraging AI, RPA, and humans in the loop.

Stealth Scaling has operations in Miami, Fl and Metro Manila, Philippines to completely automate work end to end.

We build out software robots that can mimic what humans do in the revenue cycle management process such as medical coding, eligibility verification, claims processing, and more.

The bots run 24/7 and can scale up or down based on seasonality and are backed by trained humans in the loop who have clinical experience.

The humans only handle exceptions or validations that the bot needs assistance with.

The Philippines is a medical hub and has a ton of talented nurses and other non-clinical practitioners that can jump in and support these processes when needed.

This is truly a disruptive model because clients don’t pay any implementation, maintenance, or license fees to software companies to start automating processes.

Stealth Scaling funds the automation implementation, maintenance, labor, and license costs and becomes your center of excellence for automation.

Stealth only charges per successful transaction, whether a bot or human completes it.

This allows health providers to start reaping the benefits from automation and have a tangible ROI on day 1 of the bots and humans in the loop going live.

If you would like to get a free automation evaluation please fill out our contact form and our automation specialists will get in touch with you right away!