Streamlining women’s health practice operations

The delivery of obstetrics-gynecological (Ob-Gyn) healthcare has been evolving rapidly in recent years. Once largely confined to reproductive matters, today's women's health practices encompass areas as diverse as endocrinology, menopause support, gynecological oncology, maternal and fetal medicine, and urogynecology.¹ With in vitro fertilization (IVF) accounting for 2.6% of U.S. births,² women's health clinicians are also expanding their fertility care practices, exploring advances in assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT).

These innovations promise to elevate women's healthcare and enhance patient outcomes. But they can also create workflow challenges. On top of growing paperwork, declining reimbursements, and rising patient expectations, many women's health practices are also dealing with pressures specific to their specialty — and those challenges are getting harder to ignore.

Let's take a closer look at some of these challenges and explore strategies for resolving them.

Top workflow challenges for women's health practices today

In a trend that has persisted for several years, women's health practitioners have been reporting ongoing declines in work-life balance, resulting in both burnout and depression.³ While not solely the cause, the following challenges are contributing to this trend.

High patient volumes

As women's health practitioners expand their areas of focus, demands on their time are rising at the same pace. On average, Ob-Gyns see four patients every hour, although some see as many as eight patients per hour.⁴ These patient volumes increase in rural areas, where 13 or fewer Ob-Gyns are available for every 100,000 women.⁵

Combined with the pressure to meet the needs of a diverse patient population, these time constraints may raise the risk of diagnostic errors and lead to mismanagement of complications and suboptimal patient counseling — all factors that contribute to Ob-Gyn malpractice allegations.⁶

Talent shortages and turnover

With awareness of women's health issues growing, demand for specialty practitioners is anticipated to increase.⁷ As it does, the current supply/demand imbalance is set to widen. In 2024, over 60% of healthcare organizations were struggling to find permanent Ob-Gyn practitioners.⁸ Among rural and traditionally underserved communities, the gap is particularly acute, with over 35% of U.S. counties now designated as “maternity care deserts" that lack both obstetric clinicians and birthing facilities.⁹ These talent shortages are placing greater burdens on active practitioners attempting to take a holistic approach to patients' widespread healthcare needs.

Documentation and charting complexities

On average, Ob-Gyn practitioners spend 15 hours a week on paperwork and administration.10 Beyond the need to maintain health records, obtain consents, and document all procedures, women's health practices need to manage an overwhelming amount of data generated by lab work and diagnostic imaging.

Women's health practices that continue to rely on outdated approaches to documentation and charting also often struggle to integrate their clinical, operational, and financial data. This fragmented view of patient information can compromise patient care, increase costs, expose operational inefficiencies, and introduce regulatory and legal risks.

Women's health practices ... frequently struggle to integrate their clinical, operational, and financial data. This fragmented view ... can compromise patient care and increase costs.

Billing errors and inconsistencies

Although women's healthcare is evolving, billing practices frequently remain overly manual. As a result, practitioners face billing challenges that include coding errors, improper submissions, and misapplication of payer-specific billing policies.¹¹ These errors, along with confusion around the need for prior authorizations for common procedures, including obstetric imaging,¹² contribute to underpayments and delayed reimbursement. In fact, denial rates for women's healthcare claims may be as high as 28%, compared to 19% in the broader Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace.¹³

This claim denial rate can cause significant disruption in a practice's revenue cycles, reducing cashflow, straining staff resources, and narrowing profit margins.

Closing the gaps: AI-native EHR

While women's health practitioners face real challenges, Ob-Gyn technology solutions can help resolve them. That's especially true when it comes to AI-native platforms, like athenaOne®, which support intelligent interoperability across the entire women's healthcare ecosystem. To understand how this works in practice, let's consider some of the benefits you can expect from using athenaOne for Women's Health.

• Free up time and resources with women's health-specific workflows: This all-in-one solution was built to provide personalized care for women at every stage of their lives, from Ob-Gyn support and pregnancy to menopause care. With workflows configured to different areas of specialty, you can improve both patient and clinician experiences and reduce administrative burdens.
• Restore work-life balance with accelerated documentation: Support features like menopause-specific workflows, depression screening macros, IUD insertion procedure templates, and more enable faster and more accurate documentation, saving you time while giving you the tools you need to enhance patient-centric care.
• Grow revenue and reduce denials: Leveraging industry-leading claims processing services, the platform helps transform clinical conversations into billable claims in real time, with AI nudges to verify completeness and accuracy. By reducing billing errors, this can help you capture the revenue you are owed, optimizing your practice's financial performance.
• Enhance patient engagement: With AI-enabled dictation tools, proactive scheduling, self-service options, and support for telehealth and virtual care, you can engage patients more personally, creating stronger long-term relationships.

In a practice area that changes as dynamically as women's health, adaptive tools can spell the difference between overwhelm and outperform.

To discover how you can deliver more holistic care for women, learn more about athenaOne for Women's Health.