Patient Accounting 2020
Driving Tangible Outcomes in Revenue Cycle

Epic Maintains Lead with Most Functional Solution; MEDITECH Making Strides

Strong Results from Epic Cushion Initial Go-Live Difficulties

Epic customers report the go-live requires a large internal lift up front. After the go-live and training, many feel the system’s ease of use and product quality are second to none. Users describe the system as “solid,” and several call it the Cadillac of revenue cycle solutions. Organizations using Allscripts say support personnel are available, willing to help when needed, and knowledgeable enough to help customers quickly work through issues.

Many Cerner customers have had to increase their number of patient accounting–related FTEs to make up for system deficiencies and keep the system running and bills going out the door. This need to hire additional employees was not expected at the time of contracting—organizations believed the system would be able to sustain itself without this additional investment. Some MEDITECH customers report they had to devote unexpected time and energy to ensure the solution was implemented to meet their needs—though very few needed to devote additional FTEs, partly due to the product’s basic nature.

Epic’s and MEDITECH’s Solid Solutions Generate Satisfaction with Financial Trending Metrics

Overall, Epic customers are satisfied with their financial trending metrics. With the platform’s reporting and analytics functionality, organizations are able to closely monitor factors affecting financial metrics and stay ahead of any problems. Several respondents who recently went live report minimal disruption to their financial trending during the implementation and are currently satisfied with their status in these metrics. Some of what keeps Epic from excelling in this area is the aforementioned implementation struggles, causing these metrics to dip initially before (nearly universally) returning to normal levels. Organizations using MEDITECH feel their solution offers solid support of financial trending, saying it has helped them achieve “tremendous outcomes” and return to normal quickly after an initial increase in A/R days at implementation. Multiple respondents state the reporting capabilities and dashboards are a strength that allows them to keep on top of trending metrics and the product’s performance.

Satisfaction with A/R days trending is split among interviewed Cerner customers. Some have seen recent improvements in this area by working with Cerner. Nearly the same number feel the solution is increasing their A/R days and express doubt the situation will improve in the near future.

Epic Up Front about Solution Gaps; MEDITECH and Cerner Customers Find Unexpected Back-Office Gaps

While the Epic solution has room to improve, customers credit the vendor for being very up front about system capabilities and deficiencies, and most have had to fill very few gaps overall. Several respondents did mention robotic process automation and automation in general as unexpected gaps they would like Epic to fill in the future.

Several Cerner customers are frustrated by, in their words, the vendor’s lack of transparency and honesty about the system’s abilities and deficiencies. Some organizations say the system’s capabilities were oversold, requiring the use of additional technology. The most commonly mentioned gaps relate to reporting/analytics, workflows, and patient access. MEDITECH respondents report the highest total number of gaps that need to be filled by an outside vendor. Most are in back-office processes, such as contract management, clearinghouse, and statements. Organizations have also needed to find additional technologies to help with patient access activities, such as financial assistance, prior authorization, and quality assurance.

About This Report

Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT products and services their organizations use. These interviews are conducted using a standard quantitative evaluation, and the scores and commentary collected are shared in reports like this one and online in real time so that other providers and IT professionals can benefit from their peers’ experiences. To enable readers to more quickly understand high-level differences in vendor performance and give better context as to how each product compares to other offerings in the market, KLAS has organized the questions from the standard evaluation into six customer experience pillars—culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.

What Does “Limited Data” Mean? 

Some products are used in only a small number of facilities, some vendors are resistant to providing client lists, and some respondents choose not to answer particular questions. Thus a vendor’s sample size may vary from question to question and may not reach KLAS’ required threshold of 15 unique respondents. When a vendor’s sample size for a particular question is less than 15, the score for that question is marked with an asterisk (*) or otherwise designated as “limited data.” If the sample size is less than 6, no score is shown. Note that when a vendor has a low number of reporting sites, the possibility exists for KLAS scores to change significantly as new surveys are collected.

Overall scores are measured on a 100-point scale and represent the weighted average of several yes/no questions as well as other questions scored on a 9-point scale.