Taking a Platform Approach over Standalone Solutions: Enterprise Revenue Cycle Management Platforms 2024
In recent years, there has been a trend across the healthcare industry toward vendor consolidation. The ease of working with a single platform or vendor is especially important in a complicated, dynamic space such as revenue cycle management (RCM). Vendors have started adapting to meet this need by developing more comprehensive platforms. KLAS recently spoke to many deep adopters of a vendor’s enterprise RCM offerings to gauge where this market stands today and what challenges remain. Deep adopters are those with at least three technology solutions from a single RCM vendor (including one front-office solution, one back-office solution, and one solution from any category). Read the Enterprise Revenue Cycle Management Platforms 2023 report for a deeper look into how deep adopters are using and rating their platforms.
Why Take a Platform Approach?
There is high promise with a platform approach, especially for RCM, but as with any market this early, potential challenges remain. Some of these perceived challenges may hold certain provider organizations back from more deeply adopting a single vendor’s platform. Additionally, many feel the adoption of a platform might require giving up certain functionalities in order to see other benefits. Deep adopters in this report who have made the transition note benefits such as improved integration and workflows, cost efficiencies, and strengthened vendor partnerships. Some reported cons include problems with an overreliance on one vendor, potential slow innovation that leads to functionality gaps, and less competition.
An Early but Growing Market
Only in recent years have provider organizations started to recognize the benefits of simplifying their technology stack and vendors have started to respond in their development road maps. Thus, the overall market of RCM platforms is still in an early stage with many ongoing developments and recent acquisitions that have high potential to shift market energy. Likewise, at this point, customer adoption across vendors remains low but is trending upward. Some pieces with generally higher adoption currently include eligibility/insurance discovery, claims statusing/claims edits, and clearinghouses.
All vendors in this report have room to improve, with even the highest-rated vendor having an overall performance score in the low 80s (out of 100). Overall, customer experience widely varies for those who have deeply adopted a vendor’s offerings, and vendors still have the opportunity to improve customer satisfaction by improving their consistent delivery and service.
How Will the Market Evolve?
As this market continues to evolve, customer satisfaction will likely increase based on two elements: (1) as vendors continue to build out and advance their suites of products, and (2) as provider organizations increase adoption and realize more of the benefits that led them to initially take a platform approach. High satisfaction may especially depend on the vendor’s ability to adapt their pricing, as provider organizations want to ensure they are optimizing what they are receiving at the price they are paying. Across all measured vendors in this report, respondents discussed economies of scale as a reason for deeply adopting the platform, but that outcome may not be fully realized for all at this point.
As time goes on, relationships between vendors and their deep adopters will likely continue to strengthen, as they understand each other’s needs and can better adapt to those needs. Provider organizations are relying on vendors for more things, including more expertise, so they will continue to seek out the vendors who can provide a more holistic experience. KLAS will continue to measure this space to see how further development and adoption will affect customer satisfaction. See the full report for more differentiating information on the current state of the market and vendor performance.
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