DOI: 10.69554/lfam6245 ISSN: 2397-1061

Journey to excellence: How Bon Secours Mercy Health transformed its provider onboarding process

Michellene Kerr-Gordon, Cassie Lowe, Dawn Murphy, Michelle Stultz
Show PDF Cite
Provider retention is vital for a healthcare organisation. The intake and integration process for providers into the organisation sets the tone for the experience the provider expects to have throughout their job tenure. Often, this intake and integration process — onboarding — can be clunky at best and completely dysfunctional at worst, leaving providers confused and frustrated, claims unpaid and function leaders wondering what went wrong. The 120-day period before a provider sees their first patient is when functions like recruitment, human resources (HR), information technology, enrolment, credentialing, privileging, risk, compliance and the medical group are all racing to complete their siloed processes. But, organisational alignment, smart use of existing assets and technology as well as a strong desire to keep the provider’s experience at the centre of it are the pillars of success of an onboarding programme. This paper details the experience at Bon Secours Mercy Health and how they methodically addressed all aspects of the onboarding process to successfully overcome one of health care’s silent revenue-killing challenges. The paper will review the five-phased approach used to successfully implement a new onboarding programme and the specific metrics used to measure results, including a 17-day reduction in the overall time a provider spends in the process, 70 per cent reduction of claims denials attributed to credentialing delays and 92 per cent of providers starting on time by the end of the pilot. Not only are providers submitting their applications faster than ever, but also applications are no longer returned for correction, thanks to auditing by an assigned onboarding concierge. Closely coordinated functional teams are thriving with clearly delineated responsibilities. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.

More from our Archive