5 tips to improve revenue cycle management

How customer success managers support better revenue cycle management

Independent practices face constant pressure to improve revenue cycle performance. Collection rates, days in A/R, and staff efficiency all directly impact your bottom line, and even small improvements create significant financial returns.

You may rely on revenue cycle management (RCM) technology to support these processes, but the real advantage comes from how strategically you use it. High-performing practices approach RCM technology as a competitive advantage, not just an operational necessity.

Based on insights from athenahealth’s customer success managers (CSMs) who work daily with top-performing practices, here are five strategies to get the most out of your RCM technology.

Tip #1: Master your revenue metrics and tracking

High-performing practices don’t wait for monthly reports to understand their revenue cycle health. They monitor key metrics daily, catching problems early when they’re easiest to fix.

Start with metrics that drive action. Track your clean claim rate, days in A/R, denial rate, and collection rate weekly at a minimum — daily if possible. If your denial rate jumps from 8% to 12%, you need to know immediately, not three weeks later when the problem has compounded.

Dashboards need to be accessible to the right people. Front desk staff should see real-time eligibility verification rates, while billing teams need daily visibility into claim status and denial reasons. Administrators need comprehensive views that connect clinical workflows to revenue outcomes.

Bill Whalen, a CSM at athenahealth, emphasizes the power of daily monitoring: “Practices that check their dashboards daily can address issues in real-time. If you’re only looking at reports monthly, you’re managing retrospectively rather than proactively.

Tip #2: Benchmark against peers to drive change

Understanding how you compare to similar practices transforms your data into actionable insights. Peer benchmarking helps you identify realistic improvement targets and prioritize where to focus your efforts.

Specialty-specific comparisons offer the most benefit. A family practice and an orthopedic surgery center face entirely different revenue cycle challenges. Compare your performance to practices with similar patient populations, payer mixes, and procedural complexity rather than generic benchmarks.

Look for achievable gaps, not just averages. If your peers average 75% patient collections and you're at 64%, that 11-point gap represents a concrete revenue opportunity.

Bob Brady, also a CSM at athenahealth, explains the motivational power of peer comparisons: “Nothing motivates a practice more than seeing a peer practice down the street performing better. It moves improvement from theoretical to achievable.”

athenaOne® customers can access this benchmarking directly within their platform. “When practices use the same platform, they benefit from shared knowledge,” says Whalen. “You can see what's working for similar practices and apply those strategies to your own operations.”

Tip #3: Invest in training and adoption

Even the most sophisticated RCM technology won’t improve performance if your team doesn’t learn how to use it properly. High-performing practices prioritize ongoing training and monitor adoption to ensure staff leverage available tools effectively.

Training needs to be ongoing. When you implement new RCM technology, initial training gets staff started, but regular education ensures they master new and advanced features that drive efficiency. Quarterly refresher sessions keep teams up to date on best practices.

Monitor for workarounds or manual processes staff create to bypass system features. Workarounds signal training gaps or workflow issues that need attention. They multiply inefficiencies and create error opportunities.

Lisa Christensen, another CSM at athenahealth, explains what to watch for in these patterns: “We look at whether practices are using integrated workflows or creating workarounds. When we see workarounds developing, that’s a signal something needs attention — usually training or a workflow adjustment.”

Tip #4: Automate the right tasks

Manual revenue cycle tasks consume staff time, introduce errors, and delay cash flow. Thoughtful automation amplifies your team’s impact by eliminating tasks that don’t require their expertise, allowing them to focus on work that needs human skill and judgment.

Start with high-volume, routine tasks. Eligibility verification, payment posting, and appointment reminders are repetitive and time-consuming when done manually. Automating these functions frees staff for complex denial appeals and patient payment conversations that require expertise.

Ensure automation integrates seamlessly. Bolt-on automation tools that don’t communicate with your EHR create new problems, leaving staff to waste time reconciling data across systems. Look for automation built into your core platform or tightly integrated with it.

Barrington Internal Medicine shows what's possible. As a solo-provider practice, they faced staffing constraints, but by enabling Automatic Claim Creation through their athenaOne platform, they reduced charge entry lag from 60 days to 14 days, giving the provider more time for patient care and more predictable cash flow.*,**

And monitor performance consistently. Automated eligibility checks only help if they’re done at the right times. Automated payment posting only works if it handles exceptions correctly. Review automation outcomes quarterly and adjust rules when you identify patterns of errors or missed cases.

Tip #5: Partner strategically with your technology vendor

Your RCM technology vendor should function as a strategic ally, not just a software provider. High-performing practices establish clear expectations for proactive communication and escalation paths before problems arise.

Seamless integration is critical. If your RCM solution doesn’t integrate smoothly with your EHR, you’ll waste hours on manual data entry and reconciliation. Verify integrations work during implementation, and audit integration performance quarterly to catch issues early.

A proactive partner flags performance issues before you discover them. If your denial rate spikes, you shouldn’t learn about it weeks later from your own analysis — your partner should alert you, explain root causes, and recommend solutions.

Brady describes this approach as part of how CSMs use athenaOne to monitor customer performance and act quickly when trends begin to slip: “When we see performance deteriorating, we reach out immediately. We don’t wait for the next scheduled review — we call and say, ‘Here’s what we’re seeing, here’s what we think is causing it, and here’s what we recommend.’”

Know who to call when problems escalate. For serious issues requiring leadership intervention, you need direct access to decision-makers who can authorize solutions. Define these paths during contract negotiations, not when you’re in crisis mode.

Putting it all together

The real power of these strategies emerges when they work in concert. CSRA Renal Services in Aiken, South Carolina, demonstrates this perfectly.*** The only nephrology practice in a three-county radius serving five dialysis clinics, they faced piecemeal workflows, limited connectivity, missed appointments, and claim turnaround times of 60-90 days. In April 2023, they transitioned to athenaOne and, importantly, implemented it strategically.*

They customized workflows to eliminate inefficiencies, invested in comprehensive staff training, leveraged automation to accelerate claims, and partnered with athenahealth for ongoing optimization. The results: claim turnaround dropped to 17 days, revenue increased 8% in the first year, and they experienced zero cash flow disruption during implementation.

You don’t need to transform overnight. Start with the strategy that addresses your most pressing challenge, monitor results, then add the next strategy.

Learn how athenaOne’s AI-native RCM solution supports cleaner claims, faster posting, and fewer denials.