Client News Coverage

A single breach impacting any of the multiple cloud-based or internally connected tools, devices, and hardware and software solutions found in the typical dental practice or dental services organization (DSO) can put a stop to thousands of dollars of billings per day.

Add to that the cost of recovery and potential fines related to compliance issues if any of those devices or solutions touches patient information, and the outcome can be financially devastating.

For some, it is insurmountable.

As evidenced by the ongoing and massive fall out from 2024’s Change Healthcare ransomware attack, small healthcare organizations are just as vulnerable to cyberattacks and IT events as their large counterparts—but their more limited resources translate into outsized risk profiles.

Surging cybersecurity threats don’t discriminate by a healthcare organization’s size, sector, or geographic footprint. In today’s high-risk security environment, an attack in one form or another is all but inevitable—along with the associated compliance issues and financial penalties.  Which is why even small healthcare organizations should undertake a self-audit to identify and address security and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

With no effective prevention or long-term treatment, receiving a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease can seem like a fate worse than death for patients and their families and caregivers. However, a wave of innovation is bringing new hope to the 7 million Americans already living with Alzheimer’s disease and the 500,000 who will receive this devastating diagnosis each year.

The urgency to bring new treatment options to market is escalating in tandem with the disease’s prevalence as the nation’s 65-plus population—the group most at risk for Alzheimer’s—grows.

When it comes to providing comprehensive preventive care, more than annual checkups are required. A patient-facing approach is needed to support the establishment of a health-forward routine comprised of proper nutrition and exercise, mental and emotional health, and chronic condition management.

Numerous studies back this preventive care model, which produces wide-ranging benefits, from improved health outcomes to lower care utilization to lower healthcare costs.

It's already been a busy and contentious couple weeks in Washington, with battles across a wide array of government and policy fronts in the early going of the second Trump Administration. Soon, we'll be learning a lot more about how healthcare and health IT policy will be taking shape going forward.

Robert F. Kennedy, Trump's pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has not been confirmed yet, but he inched one step closer with a party-line Finance Committee vote on Feb. 4.

As we head into 2025, several key trends are expected to significantly shape the future of healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM). From managing surging denial rates and evolving workforce dynamics to mitigating rising cybersecurity risks and integrating cutting-edge technologies, healthcare organizations are entering the new year while navigating a complex—often contentious—environment to enhance patient care and operational efficiency.

Integrating emerging technologies can make a huge difference in your organization. New technology can ease the clinical burden on your staff, which can be the difference between your staff facing burnout or not. Access to providers and healthcare can be increased with technology which can be the deciding factor for a patient to choose your organization over others. Emerging technologies can even detect anomalies or mistakes which can help a patient get the care they need faster or give you more accurate data.

Today, we are going to focus on emerging technologies in regard to health information management. We reached out to our talented Healthcare IT Today Community and asked them — how can health information management professionals leverage emerging technologies, such as AI, to enhance data integrity and streamline processes? The following is what they had to share.

As cyber threats evolve, infostealers—data-harvesting malware—are gaining traction in the criminal underground. These tools are used to siphon sensitive information like banking credentials and email passwords, which are then sold on the dark web, driving identity theft and financial fraud.

Infostealers are increasingly central to ransomware campaigns, acting as reconnaissance tools to gather login credentials, enabling attackers to move laterally across networks and escalate privileges before deploying ransomware. The rise of malware-as-a-service (MaaS) has made these tools widely accessible, even to those with little technical expertise, putting organizations of all sizes at risk.

Depending on its size, a dental practice or dental service organization (DSO) could have millions of dollars invested into tools, devices, hardware, and software that are connected to each other, the cloud, or other systems. When one is breached, it can put a halt to thousands of dollars of billings per day, not to mention the cost of recovering from a breach. Compliance issues also come into play for any of those devices or software solutions that gather, store, or exchange patient information.

This year our annual predictions will include some topics that look at how AI could help solve the challenges in our healthcare system. We begin with AI in Revenue Cycle Management. When we look at RCM we can identify these areas; patient check-in, insurance verification and pre-authorization, billing and coding, claims, patient payment and collections, to insurance denials.

We asked our experts what we might see in AI innovations for RCM in 2025. Here is what they had to say. And check out all our prediction posts looking to 2025.

Health IT Answers»

HIM continues to evolve, especially as technological advances like artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly infiltrating health care. As the health care industry experiences this unprecedented transformation, HIM leaders offer their perspectives on the top leadership skills and strategies they consider crucial in the field today.

Like many heavily regulated industries, healthcare has seen limited progress towards the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, despite the enormous potential they hold for improving productivity, accuracy, care access, and the bottom line. Much of that promise comes from use cases that span the revenue cycle management (RCM) continuum, where legacy automation tools are already having a positive impact through activities like patient reminders, insurance verification, coding, and claims status transactions.

Today, generative AI (GenAI) is poised to upend, in a positive way, healthcare’s approach to front- and back-end financial operations. It has the potential to re-imagine the massive volumes of historical and real-time revenue-related data that is flowing through RCM departments and create entirely new approaches to optimize revenue and minimize financial risk.

Efficient patient access operations are paramount for healthcare provider organizations to thrive in today’s tumultuous financial landscape. Inefficiencies created by outdated, time-consuming, and cost-intensive patient access and financial clearance operations create delays in the patient’s journey from initial contact to care access—which in turn contribute to revenue leakage that chip away at the bottom line and put an organization’s financial stability at greater risk.

Streamlining the patient access process not only eliminates those delays, but it helps ensure patients’ financial security and timely access to necessary medical services. However, many provider organizations are struggling to improve patient access operations, thanks to chronic staffing shortages, rising patient volumes, and more complex prior authorization requirements. As a result, they are falling short of core financial clearance benchmarks.

Health IT Answers»

Revenue integrity has become harder to maintain as audits grow in volume and complexity. Payers are increasing scrutiny and regulatory agencies are reinforcing fraud mitigation. Navigating this evolving terrain requires a reimagined, automated approach to billing compliance, coding, and HIM, optimizing accuracy and efficiency to protect revenue.

We sat down with Dana Finnegan, Director of Market Strategy with MDaudit, to discuss what’s behind the scenes of reimagining revenue integrity and the role automation can play in achieving success.

What's Trending NOW is the intersection of artificial intelligence, automation, analytics, and professional services in medical coding. Host Shahid Shah is joined by with Conrad Coopersmith, General Manager, AGS Health, a company focused on revenue cycle management in healthcare. Conrad shares insights of the use of technology and AI in the coding automation journey.

Healthcare NOW Radio»