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Platte Valley Medical Center (PVMC) is a beautiful, patient friendly healthcare facility located in Brighton, Colorado. From welcoming smiles at the information desk, soothing music in the lobby, to bright natural light shining through the clean and inviting facility, PVMC has built a well-earned reputation for high-quality and compassionate care for the communities it serves. Construction currently underway on a new Medical Office Building which will bring additional capacity and services including: outpatient imaging, sleep lab, and expanded orthopedic and cardiovascular services.

PVMC affiliated with the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth (SCL) Health system and will continue to function as a secular/non-faith based and not-for-profit community hospital. PVMC will also continue to operate with its own management team, board of directors, physicians, staff, and foundation while benefiting from the resources and service lines available through SCL Health.

SCL Health is a $2.4 billion health network that operates nine hospitals, four safety net clinics, one children’s mental health

PROVIDER SPOTLIGHT: PLATTE VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER

BY: LAURIE JOHNSON & CALLY CHRISTENSEN

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center, and more than 100 ambulatory service centers in Colorado, Kansas, and Montana. Locally in Colorado, SCL Health operates Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette, and Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge.

When tasked with system affiliation between the two organizations, PVMC’s Patient Financial Services Director Laurie Johnson did what all of us hope we’ll do in a similar situation: she “leaned in.” From transparent intradepartmental communication, retooling payer work flows, to increasing employee engagement and empowerment, Laurie set the expectation quickly that there were “no problems, only solutions!”

Laurie’s expertise in coaching and motivating others toward improving their performance set the approach and tone for building an integrated affiliation with both organizations. She set her sights on personally and professionally building out her team’s skillsets. When asked how she managed her staff through the change she said, “I want to find what they (employees) like and help them (build the skills) get there.” PVMC brought eight women to the inaugural HFMA Women in Leadership event last November and even stayed after the event to continue the conversation on leadership within healthcare.

Laurie joined PVMC in 2006 as a Registration Manager, and was subsequently promoted to Director of Patient Financial Services in 2012. Laurie actively manages her 55 Revenue Cycle staff. Her Access staff of 40 (e.g., Precertification, Registration, Financial Counselors, Cashiers and PBX) join Laurie’s 15 billing staff in cross pollinating best practices and removing knowledge silos.

When the PVMC team found out about the affiliation they were nervous (as would be expected) about their future, but instead of worrying about the challenges that can’t be controlled, Laurie set her sights on streamlining work flow, and increasing staff skillsets so they would be versatile assets to the company in the future. To accomplish this, Laurie included Customer Service, Insurance Billing and Account Follow-up as a responsibility for each Account Representative and then re-divided the labor assigned to each staff member.

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Laurie explains: “We made lists of all the responsibilities involved from the point of billing to resolution of the claim with the insurance. Then we divided the Billing by volumes from each payer, creating an equal billing schedule that rotates each month, this way each staff member can learn idiosyncrasies of each financial class. For account follow up, we again assessed volumes and then divided the workload into an alpha split accordingly. Then for the third skillset, each staff member rotates at the Customer Service window, fielding account inquiries on the phone and in person.”

What Laurie has found over the past few months is that staff morale and subsequent sharing of denial trending and payer tips and tricks has improved the performance of her team across the board while empowering her billers to have more versatility in their skillsets. Because each person has billing and follow-up skills, they find they are now better able to resolve inquiries from patients with one phone call.

This increases patient satisfaction and turnaround time for account resolution. Patient calls are not forwarded to voice mail and action can be taken immediately.

Now that a plan is in place for commercial accounts, Laurie’s plan is to introduce the staff that manage government billing to the same cross-training across all carrier codes and/or financial service classes (Government, Commercial and TPL payers) to ensure that patient accounts are also efficiently and effectively billed and followed up, regardless of staff illness, medical leave or retirement. Laurie has championed a change management strategy that improves access, patient satisfaction, and cash on hand while ultimately decreasing A/R. She truly has “leaned into” this transition while ensuring her employees have the best opportunity to succeed today and into their futures.