Deploying Bots in Healthcare to Find Revenue Cycle Improvements.

SUMMARY: Doing more with less has been a business mantra for decades. Healthcare leaders have implemented flex scheduling and job sharing, streamlined workflows, committed to process improvement techniques such as Lean, hired retirees, gained efficiencies from remote work ... and the list goes on. Each tactic has yielded productivity improvements, yet the need to do more with less continues. Postpandemic challenges include staff recruitment and retention, labor inflation, and dwindling margins, all of which must be addressed while maintaining corporate cultures. The journey with bots described here started in this dynamic environment, and the work has not been single-threaded. The organization featured here-an integrated delivery network-has digital front-door and back-end robotic process automation (RPA) projects underway. The digital front-door initiative supports patient self-registration and automates authorizations and insurance verification processes. The back-end patient financial services RPA project replaces and enhances existing technology. Revenue cycle as a multidepartment function is leadership's poster child for RPA, and the revenue cycle team is tasked to demonstrate the value of the technology. This article covers the initial steps and lessons learned in the process.

Interprofessional collaboration and communication to facilitate implementation of cognitive rehabilitation in persons with brain injury.

Cognitive rehabilitation encompasses therapeutic services directed at improving cognitive functioning and functional abilities in individuals with brain injury. The term cognitive rehabilitation, however, is often broadly defined, and interventions delivered by individual disciplines may vary in their conceptualizations. This paper, written by an interprofessional collaborative group of speech-language pathologists and rehabilitation psychologists/ neuropsychologists identifies challenges in interprofessional rehabilitation of cognitive problems as well as solutions for addressing those challenges. Specifically, the challenge of defining elements of cognitive rehabilitation is addressed with a recommendation for interprofessional training and development of a shared perspective; the problem of "siloed" care is addressed by recommendations for consistent and considerable efforts at interprofessional communication, use of shared language and emphasis on health literacy; and the challenge of access to collaborative care is addressed with the recommendation to increase utilization of telerehabilitation interventions. Our goal is to empower clinicians to not only turn to evidence-based practice to address patient needs, but to go further in implementing the evidence base by facilitating true collaborative interdisciplinary services via improved knowledge of best practice, and advocacy avenues within systems of care. Such an approach will maximize the ability of rehabilitation professionals to provide meaningful, person-centered interventions that will maximize patient outcomes.

Effects of pre-session centering for therapists on session presence and effectiveness.

The present study tested whether engaging in a mindfulness centering exercise 5 minutes before a session could have a positive impact on therapy, in particular on the therapists' ability to remain present in session and on session outcomes. Results indicated that therapists perceived themselves as being more present in session when they prepared for their sessions by engaging in a mindfulness centering exercises (d=.45), while clients perceived their therapists as being highly present regardless of whether their therapist completed the mindfulness centering exercise. Clients did, however, perceive the sessions as being more effective when their therapists engaged in the mindfulness centering exercise prior to the start of the session (d=.52).

Release of information.

Release of information will get easier as health IT advances. But for now, it can be a labor-intensive effort requiring more expenses than many outside the process may realize.

Improving cash flow in a down economy. How HIM can help reduce denials.

Maybe HIM professionals can't ease tight credit or reduce bad debt, but they can make sure their organizations get full, correct reimbursement on the first submission. HIM professionals help improve cash flow by contributing to revenue cycle management n these tough economic times-when increases in bad

A Multisite Pre/Post Study of Mindfulness Training for Therapists: The Impact on Session Presence and Effectiveness.

BACKGROUND: To date, little research has tested whether the use of mindfulness by clinicians results in actual changes in psychotherapy sessions. The purpose of this multisite study was to test whether a brief 5-week mindfulness training program could lead to improved session presence and effectiveness for trainee clinicians (n = 31). METHODS: At the end of 85 pretraining and 132 posttraining sessions, clients completed the client version of the Therapist Presence Inventory (TPI-C; Geller, Greenberg, & Watson, 2010) and the Session Rating Scale (SRS; Johnson, Miller, & Duncan, 2000). RESULTS: Although the levels of client-rated presence did not differ between pretraining and posttraining sessions, sessions that occurred after the training were rated by clients as more effective compared to the pretraining sessions, t(170.91) = 2.63, p = .01, d = .30. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides preliminary session outcome evidence supporting mindfulness training for clinicians.

A delay-discounting measure of preference for racial/ethnic matching in psychotherapy.

In this study, we sought to compare racial/ethnic minority participants' preference for racial/ethnic matching in psychotherapy with preferences for other methods of addressing cultural factors in treatment. Using a delay-discounting method, college students (331 racial/ethnic minority students from 2 universities) and a nationwide sample of self-reported clients (n = 77) were asked to indicate their strength of preference for 4 different methods for addressing culturally related variables in psychotherapy, including a desire to (a) work with a therapist whose race/ethnicity matches their own, (b) work with a therapist with a high level of multicultural training and experience, (c) receive a culturally adapted treatment, and (d) receive a therapist who is also a member of a racial/ethnic minority group, but not the same as the participant (i.e., a racial/ethnic minority pairing). We found that participants were willing to make significant sacrifices in treatment efficacy in order to receive each of the variables tested. In both samples, preferences were significantly stronger for therapist multicultural training/experience and use of culturally adapted treatments compared with racial/ethnic matching and racial/ethnic minority pairing. Further analyses indicated that clients expressed stronger preferences for racial/ethnic match and minority pairing than college student participants, and preference strength for 3 of the 4 scenarios was significantly related to strength of minority culture identification. The results of this study have important implications for preference accommodation in psychotherapy with racial/ethnic minority individuals.

Turning production data into management tools.

Staring down another backlog in your HIM department? Use routine data collection activities to strengthen your case for additional staff, increased budget dollars, or an incentive program.

HIPAA copy charges for medical records.

The HIPAA privacy rule allows providers to charge for providing copies of medical records to patients and their representatives. Providers need to know which activities in the retrieval and handling of such information can be included in the medical record copy charges. State-mandated fees for copies vary and may be preempted by HIPAA, requiring careful review by providers. Healthcare organizations that use a copy service may need to determine whether bringing the activity in house would be more cost-effective under HIPAA.

Mindfulness as a transtheoretical clinical process.

The use of mindfulness in psychotherapy has garnered the attention of both researchers and therapists over recent years. Based on established research, use of mindfulness with clients is recommended to improve awareness during sessions, reduce ruminative thinking patterns, and increase self-compassion regardless of theoretical orientation. In this article, de-identified clinical material is used to illustrate both informal and formal mindfulness training in session. Further, we provide illustrations of presession and within-session therapist mindfulness, recommending that therapists develop their own mindfulness practice, as research has demonstrated that it is related to important clinical skills including attentiveness, nonjudgment, and improved client perceptions.