Show staff how AI can free them up for more valuable tasks.
Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers and developers are continuing to find new and innovative ways to deploy AI in healthcare. From medical coding and billing to documenting patient visits, AI can have a role in assisting your staff throughout the workday. However, some employees may be hesitant to welcome the technology.
Check out the following tips to help AI adoption succeed in your healthcare organization.
Tip 1: Reassure Your Employees
As AI develops and grows in popularity with different companies, employees are naturally concerned about their job status. The best thing you can do as a manager is to reassure your staff that the technology is not coming for their jobs, but rather it is here to assist them with their daily duties.
“[AI] is here to help you to do your job better, and to alleviate the mundane or trivial tasks that you have to do, so that you are freed up to do more valuable things with your time, things that will add more value to the organization,” said Christopher Chandler, MHA, MBA, CPC, CGSC, manager of coding and reimbursement at Intermountain Health, during his “What AI Will Bring to Coding and Healthcare” session at AAPC’s HEALTHCON Regional 2024.
For example, an AI service in a front desk role can assist the desk staff by reducing the administrative tasks that occupy a majority of a patient interaction. The technology can schedule appointments, send out appointment confirmation phone calls or text messages, and verify insurance coverage. With these vital, but time-consuming, tasks performed by AI, your human front desk staff can focus on providing more meaningful patient exchanges.
“Part of the reason for AI is to create availability of resources that not everyone has had access to before,” Chandler added.
Tip 2: Loop in the Staff on the Decision-Making Process
When new technology enters the marketplace, let alone the workplace, it can be met with uncertainty. However, with experience getting to use AI, some staffers will feel more at ease with the technology.
Most people have some form of AI on their smartphones, laptops, and tablets with Apple’s Siri, Gemini by Google, and Microsoft’s CoPilot, and have used the tech to send a text message while driving, turn on music, or draft an email to their colleagues. However, before your organization’s chooses and deploys an AI solution, asking your staff’s input on the matter can help improve the success of the technology.
“Its integration must prioritize, putting the human, both patient, provider, and employee, at the center of its application. This is something where it needs to be a people-centered application where it helps us do our jobs better,” Chandler said.
Tip 3: Identify What You Want Out of the Automation Process
Looping the staff into your decision-making process will help you determine exactly what your organization needs to thrive with an AI solution.
The AI marketplace has solutions for healthcare that meet a variety of needs. Regardless of whether you’re looking to automate documentation, seeking medical coding assistance, or would like to enhance your imaging services, there is a tool to assist your organization — and knowing how you want that technology to work for you is crucial to its success and adoption.
Here are two examples of how AI can make your healthcare organization more efficient:
An AI solution could look into the patient’s records, see they haven’t been to the PCP in over six months, and automatically schedule the PCP visit prior to the podiatry appointment.
“What you want to do is you want to create your process or put it down on paper. Then you want to identify which part of that process you want to automate or introduce artificial intelligence to be able to remove that burden,” Chandler explained.
Stay tuned to Revenue Cycle Insider for more information as AI continues to evolve in healthcare.
Mike Shaughnessy, BA, CPC, Development Editor, AAPC
