NEWS RELEASE:

Eastern Health Consolidate 16 Billing Systems to one Enterprise Wide Billing System

8 November 2022 - MELBOURNE, VIC

Eastern Health has completed their ambitious project to streamline their billing processes, replacing 16 billing systems with one enterprise wide billing system, PowerHealth’s Power Billing and Revenue Collection (PBRC), bringing positive change for both patients and staff.

Marina Hocking, Project Manager, Single Billing System Project, Eastern Health noted “The Single Billing System Project was established to govern 5 streams of work, covering system consolidation as well as business transformation. It has been a ground-breaking journey and certainly worth the effort. Improvements in patient experience were a major focus of the project, along with increases in revenue capture and improved operational efficiency and it’s great to see these outcomes are being achieved”.

During the formation of the Business case, a review of existing system and process capability led Eastern Health to forecast that some revenue was not raised due to process and system complexity. The new enterprise wide billing system is simplifying processes and improving effectiveness. Financial benefits life to date are 19% above the business case forecast.

PowerHealth Director Brett Michael praised the team at Eastern Health for their progressive attitude noting, “Eastern Health’s continued drive to improve operational efficiency is energising. The project at the outset appeared daunting, but Eastern Health had an end vision and this remained the focus throughout”.

The new system has supported the rapid transition to work from home during COVID and remains a sustainable flexible solution, used across multiple working locations and sites.

At project closure, PBRC is managing the billing for the full patient journey across the Emergency Department, Inpatient and Outpatient, Theatre and Prosthetic billing, Pharmacy, Allied Health, Transition Care, Ambulatory Care, Pathology, Medical Imaging and Cardiology services.

“Not only have Eastern Health achieved their goal of a single billing system, we have worked together to deliver three first to market initiatives including; an integrated mail house with PBRC, providing the ability to automatically generate patient correspondence by SMS, Email or Mail; Design and delivery of PBRC Mobile, a hand held electronic device for clinicians to record services for billing; and the Integration with their rostering system to obtain clinician roster information and to assist in identification of potential missed billing for services performed based on their rostered hours” Mr Michael said.

With implementation complete, Eastern Health can now focus on reaching their end vision of complete operational efficiency. This includes making use of the Enterprise- Wide Billing Solution capability for management reporting including improved visibility and transparency of business performance and data-based decision making around areas for improvement and future growth opportunities.

“The Eastern Health Finance Leadership Team, together with PowerHealth, will continue to improve the maturity and embed the use of business reports to enable data led decision making. We are confident and excited for what comes next” Craig Trenfield, Director, Financial Services said.

Contact our PBRC team if you would like more information.