Your Revenue Cycle on Autopilot: The Power of AI and Automation in Healthcare

Here’s a stat to stop you in your tracks: The U.S. spends nearly twice as much on healthcare administration compared to other high-income nations, about $1,055 per person annually, most of it tied up in billing and insurance-related tasks. For finance and operations teams trying to manage tight margins and rising costs, that number doesn’t just sting, it demands change. 

If you’re part of the back office of the CFO within a healthcare organization, whether you’re managing accounts payable, accounts receivable, or employee onboarding, you’re likely all too familiar with the daily grind of inefficiencies. Manual processes, siloed data, multi-touch claims, delayed reimbursement. Sound familiar? 

The good news is you don’t need to throw more people or even more bots at the problem. What you need is a smarter approach. Let’s talk about how AI-powered automation can eliminate the friction slowing down your revenue cycle and transform your Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) operations to do more with less, without burning out your team. 

The Problem: More Hands ≠ Faster Results

For years, the answer to revenue cycle slowdowns has remained the same: hire more people or outsource the work. But today’s reality demands leaner operations. Labor shortages, rising wages, and shifting patient expectations are making it harder to throw headcount at the problem.  

Let’s break it down: 

• Too many touchpoints: A single claim might pass through multiple departments before getting paid. Each handoff adds risk and delay. 

• Lack of visibility: Many finance leaders still don’t have the data to see how efficient, or inefficient, their processes truly are. How many touches does it take to process a claim? What’s the average lag time? Where are approvals getting stuck? 
• Administrative overload: It’s not just clinical care that’s overburdened. Your AP team is probably buried under piles of invoices, data entry, and status checks, most of it still on paper or stuck in disconnected systems. 

Without real-time insights, teams can’t easily pinpoint what’s holding up the process. That leads to missed revenue, cash flow slowdowns, and costly inefficiencies. 

Manual workflows also carry added risk. Every hand-keyed field or paper-based approval increases the chances of compliance issues, billing errors, or delayed reimbursements.  

And the administrative burden isn’t just frustrating, it’s expensive. Some estimates attribute more than $500 billion annually to the non-clinical costs of healthcare in the U.S. 

Why Lean Operations Start with Smarter Workflows

Being lean doesn’t mean cutting staff. It means simplifying the way work gets done so your team can focus on what really matters. 

That’s where AI and automation come in. 

When properly integrated into your RCM and AP workflows, automation doesn’t replace your team. It removes the mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that slow them down. Think of it as handing off the copy/paste work to a digital co-worker so your human team can focus on exceptions, escalations, and decision-making.  

For example: 

• Invoice ingestion and matching: Automation can extract data from incoming invoices (whether scanned, emailed, or EDI) and match it against POs and receipts in seconds. 

• Claims processing: AI-powered systems proactively validate and scrub claims, catching errors before they cause denials. 

• Payment automation: AP teams can eliminate check runs and manual approvals by routing payments through virtual cards, ACH, or wires based on supplier preference. 

When these systems work together, magic happens. Suddenly, the finance team has visibility into the full revenue lifecycle, from patient registration to final payment. 

Metrics That Matter (And How Automation Improves Them)

Let’s talk performance indicators. These are the metrics that keep CFOs up at night, and that automation can improve almost immediately: 

1. Cost to Collect 
   AI-driven automation slashes administrative overhead, delivering significant savings on reimbursement efforts. Building on these cost savings, automation also directly impacts your timeline to payment. 
2. Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) 
   Automated workflows keep things moving. They reduce bottlenecks and accelerate time to payment. With faster payment cycles established, you can then focus on eliminating manual touches entirely. 
3. Zero-Touch Rate 
   The holy grail of RCM: claims or invoices processed without any human intervention. A higher zero-touch rate means fewer errors, faster payments, and a more scalable process. As these automated processes take hold, you'll notice a dramatic shift in how your team spends their time. 
4. Staff Productivity 
   When your team isn’t bogged down by paper-chasing, they can handle more claims, resolve exceptions faster, and focus on strategic tasks like supplier negotiations or root cause analysis. 

Real Talk: Automation Without Intelligence Doesn’t Cut It

Now, it’s worth mentioning. Adding automation just for the sake of automation won’t solve your problems. A bot that moves data from one broken process to another isn’t innovation. It’s digital duct tape. 

What healthcare finance teams need is intelligent automation: systems that can learn, adapt, and integrate across your revenue ecosystem. That means:  

• Knowing which claims need human attention and which don’t. 

• Understanding why a payment is delayed and alerting the right person. 

• Routing documents and approvals based on real-time data, not static rules.  

Equally important is choosing automation that integrates smoothly with your existing EHR and financial platforms. You shouldn't need bloated implementations or custom-coded nightmares. 

Look for solutions designed to evolve alongside your workflows. Tools that adapt to your environment, not the other way around. 

Lean, But Not Mean: Empowering Your People

The goal of automation isn’t to eliminate jobs. It’s to make jobs better. Healthcare finance teams are often stuck doing “just enough to get by” because they don’t have the time or tools to optimize.  

By automating the grunt work, you give your team the breathing room to: 

• Be proactive instead of reactive. 

• Spot trends and act on insights. 

• Improve supplier and payer relationships. 
• And yes, go home on time. 

It also opens the door for your team to shift from task execution to strategy. They can develop new analytical skills, take ownership of more complex challenges, and drive continuous improvement. 

When your workforce feels empowered instead of overworked, retention improves, and performance soars. 

Your Next Step: Partnering with onPhase

Healthcare’s financial landscape isn’t getting easier. Reimbursements are shrinking. Regulations are tightening. And your finance and operations teams are expected to do more with less. 

That’s why onPhase was built. We help healthcare organizations like yours streamline revenue cycle management and payments with smart, intuitive automation. 

Whether you’re struggling with invoice backlog, unclear visibility into payment status, or too many claims requiring manual intervention, we can help you build a process that’s lean, efficient, and sustainable. 

We’re not here to replace your people. We’re here to make them unstoppable. 

And with our phased implementation approach, you’ll start seeing results quickly, without the headaches that usually come with change. 

Ready to take the next step toward a more efficient RCM? 
Let’s build the business case together, starting with a conversation. Schedule some time with one of our automation experts today!