​Revenue Cycle Management is a very complex environment. There is a lot of confusion and conflicting ideas within Revenue Cycle Management. It doesn’t have to be there. Confusion has a negative impact on operations and the ability to provide the desired quality of patient care. A good deal of Revenue Cycle Management confusion can be eliminated by improving the ability of all stakeholders to consume Revenue Cycle Management content. This is possible with the appropriate design of web technology.
The method of delivering revenue cycle management procedural content to workers at all levels is just as important as the content itself. The delivery process should eliminate the time wasted and frustration associated with searching for and understanding the resources required to do one’s job. In fact, if getting to and digesting the content is too laborious, it will probably not be used.
In his 1996 article, Content is King, Bill Gates made bold predictions about how the Internet would change the world. The Internet combined with today's mobile technologies has certainly changed the way we, as workers, engage procedural content. Information comes at us faster and through more channels.

​We try to multitask, but we don’t do it well.  The March 10, 2021 Cleveland Clinic healthessentials article, Why Multitasking Doesn’t Work, says that trying to multitask increases the chances of error.  The article references a study that says only 2.5% of people multitask effectively.
As workers, we do not read procedural content for relaxation and enjoyment. We read procedural content to get work done. Procedural content design impacts our ability to ingest the material. Documents and websites that present procedural content in “walls of text” beat us down. We’re limited on time and having to read line by line and page after page takes up time and is not consistent with the visual technological capabilities we see when we’re shopping or using the Internet to help with hobbies.

​Poor resource accessibility is a huge detriment to the effectiveness and efficiency with which the Revenue Cycle Management teams can do their jobs.

​So, think about this for a moment. How easy is it to get to all the components that make up your Revenue Cycle Management environment?

​How easy are they to view and understand? Are these resources integrated and linked to their related materials? Are they linked to your Revenue Cycle Management processes so that any stakeholder can access them for what the stakeholder needs during their specific process execution?
A picture is worth a thousand words. Today’s technology delivers that concept much more easily if it’s thought out. So let us introduce you to the visual transformation of Revenue Cycle Management using what we call Process Resource Centers. Process Resource Centers deliver on the issues stated above. They are web frameworks that centralize, integrates, and delivers all your Revenue Cycle Management resources in a manner that is visually and operationally consumable. Process Resource Centers are designed to meet the content delivery expectations of 21st-century workers. All resources are a few finger-taps away. Process Resource Centers get all stakeholders from employees to top executives on the same page quickly. Process Resource Centers work on desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

This LinkedIn article introduces Revenue Cycle Process Management Process Resource Centers.
Revenue Cycle Management Visually Consumable, Operationally Actionable Cross-Functional End-to-End Process Integrity
Link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/revenue-cycle-process-management-visually-consumable/
One of the components of the Revenue Cycle Management Process Resource Center is the RCM Organization Chart. Traditional single perspective company organization charts contribute to a siloed Revenue Cycle Management Culture. Leadership is visually conveying to employees the vertical reporting structure. Creating organization charts that visually align the company structure to RCM improves communications and helps to eliminate departmental silos.

This LinkedIn article speaks to RCM organization charts.
Are Your Organization Charts Strengthening a Siloed Revenue Cycle Management Culture? - Revenue Cycle Management Organization Charts  Penetrate RCM Silos
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-organization-charts-strengthening-siloed-revenue/
So how do you understand who is responsible for what: accountability? Another component of the Revenue Cycle Management Process Resource Center is a tool that combines 2 well-documented methods that answer this question. We have combined those methodologies in order to visually understand total accountability for a single process and for cross-functional processes. The two methodologies are

• SIPOC – Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer, and
• RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Inform

We call this combination Shared Responsibility Mapping (SRM). SIPOC and RACI have been in use for decades. Shared Responsibility Maps are visual silo busters.

​This LinkedIn article speaks to Shared Responsibility Mapping.
Mapping Revenue Cycle Management Cross-Department Roles & Responsibilities - Shared Responsibility Mapping Defines Revenue Cycle Management Cross-Departmental Accountability Answering Who Provides What, to Whom, and When?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mapping-revenue-cycle-management-cross-department-henry-draughon-/
So, in summary, the process of how procedural content is delivered to workers is just as important as the procedural content being delivered. The Internet and mobile technology created an evolutionary change in worker reading habits. More information is bombarding workers from multiple channels. Attention spans have shortened.
A poor content delivery method is one that doesn’t use today’s technology appropriately to accommodate  audience expectations. An archaic presentation almost guarantees that process execution will not be aligned with the company’s revenue cycle management best practices.
Process Resource Centers set the stage for process continuous improvement. And just as important, Process Resource Centers are designed to maximize the quality and efficiency of delivering procedural content in a manner that all stakeholders quickly understand. One of the primary goals of the design of Process Resource Centers is to quickly get all stakeholders on the same page.
Visual: use of graphics, workflow design, and other visual communication technology enablement that is available and expected by the 21st-century worker Simple by design, but comprehensive and complete.
Accessible: all resources within a few finger-taps and links to the supporting resources where they would be required during process execution.
Integrated a procedure that is dictated by a policy and governmental regulations should have the reference in the procedure as well as active links between the procedure, the policy, and the related governmental regulations.

​A siloed culture is detrimental to the overall effectiveness of Revenue Cycle Management. A high quality and economized Revenue Cycle Management process is essential to ensuring the organization can sustain the efforts required to delivering safe and effective patient services. End-to-end Revenue Cycle Management effectiveness and efficiency is directly influenced by the level of collaboration between all departments and stakeholders involved with the process.
A siloed Revenue Cycle Management culture exists when departments that should collaborate do not share information with other departments in the same organization. The overall goal of the company may be known but, as former Navy Seal and inspirational speaker Brent Gleeson wrote in his article 5 Ways to Destroy the Pesky Silos in Your Organization, “Talking about "more" collaboration and creating cross-functional teams is great, but this can also fail miserably without a clear shared understanding of the narrative behind the ultimate mission.” He continues, “The sub-cultures and ideas on how to achieve the goal may vary which leads to these departments, divisions or "cross-functional" teams to actually work against each other in many ways.” The link to Brent’s article is at the end of this discussion.

​Siloed Revenue Cycle Management negatively impacts the patient experience. Siloed Revenue Cycle Management increases the chances that your dissatisfied patients will seek alternative providers. Some of the symptoms are:

• Departmental information transfer delays
• Unnecessary redundancies
• Patients often having to correct misinformation or resubmit information again, and again, and again

Siloed Revenue Cycle Management increases the chance of claims being denied, extends accounts receivables, increases the cost per claim, and reduces the organization’s financial margins. Delays, errors, and unnecessary redundancies increase the number of times a claim is touched. Each additional touch is an increased cost, an operational inefficiency, and another charge against the bottom line.
Today’s workers and stakeholders are more visual. The Internet and mobile technologies are leading audience reading and learning transition from text-based to image-based . A picture is worth a thousand words is more easily delivered by today’s technologies and expected by readers.
For employees, one of the few easily recognized and understood corporate visual tools is the organization chart. The purpose of organization charts is to visually illustrate the corporate structure including reporting channels. A standard version of the organization chart contributes to a siloed Revenue Cycle Management culture. It illustrates a vertical reporting and communication structure and nor horizontal requirements. 

Executive leadership is responsible for the organization chart's message to employees. If the "authorized" communication path is vertical and the basis of budgeting, then a siloed culture should be expected. Cross-departmental sporadic collaboration may work on a voluntary basis, time permitting, and is only temporary. Well-intended cross-departmental committees will come and go.
​Visually aligning Revenue Cycle Management efforts requires a good understanding of the organization’s end-to-end revenue cycle process. Not the industry’s definition or another organization’s definition but your company’s actual process at work. The Revenue Cycle Management process below is that of the organization chart presented earlier in this article.
It was developed with the backing of leadership through workshops with most input from, as said in the military, the boots on the ground. The focus was on the process and not the structure of the organization. They defined three major revenue cycle components: Patient Engagement, Billing, and Follow-Up. These were further defined as follows:

• Patient Engagement
  • 1.0 Pre-Arrival
  • 2.0 Day of Visit
• Billing
  • 3.0 Charge Capture/Coding/Charge Entry
  • 4.0 Claim Production
• Follow-Up
  • 5.0 Financial Services
  • 6.0 Insurance Accounts Receivable Management
  • 7.0 Patient Accounts Receivable Management
  • 8.0 Credit Balance

Specific process workflows as well as the relationships between workflows were defined in these categories.

​During the workshops, inhibitors to the cross-departmental communication was discussed. The primary focus of employees is vertical reporting and performance measurement.
With the Revenue Cycle Management model defined, we looked at the organization chart. The goal here was to identify the departments that participate in the end-to-end Revenue Cycle Management processes and to align the departments in an organization chart aligned with the defined Revenue Cycle Management flow.  
The organization chart below illustrates the organization chart minus the departments that are not directly involved with Revenue Cycle Management. The organization chart has the chief financial officer and team members listed first. The chief operating officer and team members listed second, and the chief medical officer and team members listed third.

​We flipped the organization chart to align departments with the Revenue Cycle Management model.  We did not adjust the vertical reporting structure within the departments. The chief operating officer’s Practice Management department owns Patient Engagement, the front end of the company’s Revenue Cycle Management process. 

​To bring more clarity, the colors in the Revenue Cycle Management were placed into the organization chart. This Revenue Cycle Management organization chart serves as a better visual reference for employees.

Developing a Revenue Cycle Management Organization Chart aligned with the company's revenue cycle can be an important start, indicating leadership's commitment to eliminating silos. The Revenue Cycle Management Organization Chart should be used as a visual tool to assist in understanding and creating a culture of cross-departmental communication and management.
Another tool that accompanies the Revenue Cycle Management Organization Chart is Shared Responsibility Mapping. Shared Responsibility Mapping identifies roles and responsibilities for who delivers what to whom. It includes specifications for inputs and outputs as well as process performance measures. Shared Responsibility Mapping focuses on both inner-department processes and cross-departmental processes. Shared Responsibility Mapping is detailed in the LinkedIn article below: Mapping Revenue Cycle Management Cross-Department Roles & Responsibilities.
This is the link to the Shared Responsibility Mapping article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mapping-revenue-cycle-management-cross-department-henry-draughon-/

This is the link to Brent Gleason’s article: 
5 Ways to Destroy the Pesky Silos in Your Organization
Silos suck. They inhibit collaboration and the ability to align a team behind a unified vision. Get rid of them.
​https://www.inc.com/brent-gleeson/5-ways-to-destroy-the-pesky-silos-in-your-organization.html