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Kimberly Scaccia has “it.” Javon Bea, president and CEO of Mercyhealth, knew that after only a few weeks of working with Scaccia, then a consulting director at Baker Tilly who was hired to help the health system reorganize its financial situation and recruit for the role.
Part of Scaccia’s job was to help find her replacement. “Mr. Bea and I would talk every day, and he’d always end the conversation with, ‘Unless I can convince you to stay.’ He is a visionary and a total man of action.”
Ultimately, Scaccia would be recruited into Mercyhealth from Baker Tilly, a job she never thought she’d leave, for VP of revenue management, much to the delight of Bea and Mercyhealth’s leadership. The VP says that she personally went through the resumes of people who could take her job and instructed her president that there were dozens of candidates who, on paper, far exceeded Scaccia’s experience. She wanted to know why she was getting the job.
“He sat back and looked at me and explained that sometimes you just meet people in the world who have ‘it.’ He said I had ‘it’ and that Mercy needed it. I’ll never forget that moment,” she says.
“This is about helping you operate at the time of your licensure. That’s my goal. I don’t want anyone to feel undervalued in the work that they do. It was a way to cut down on ‘task’ and move to ‘talent’.”
Kimberly Scaccia
Bea has an eye for talent. Since taking on her role in 2020, Scaccia has overseen a team of 485-plus across six hospitals and eighty-five physician practices in in a healthcare landscape scarred by the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are clear numbers, like the 10 percent reduction in staff turnover Scaccia has helped create among her revenue cycle team, a team that has reduced accounts receivable days by 35 percent and a $20 million reduction in denials. But it’s between the lines where Scaccia is just as impactful.
Scaccia and her team have an ongoing passion project, formerly the patient financial literacy program, that has been renamed: Understanding Insurance.
“Nobody ever explains about the different ways people are insured,” Scaccia says. “HDHP, co-insurance, deductible, co-pays—there are probably thirty different ways you can be insured. I’ve worked in it for twenty-five years, and I still get confused. We need to do more for our community partners.”
A single PowerPoint presentation took on a life of its own. The Understanding Insurance presentation has made its way from high schools to churches to senior citizens centers. Mercyhealth even formed a partnership with Illinois’ unemployment organization to help people better understand the benefits they’re looking for while job-hunting.
Scaccia credits patient access manager Tiffany Sobczak for being the engine of the program. “I think Tiffany loves this passion project as much or more than anything she’s done in her career and it shows,” Scaccia says. “She’s so incredible out there in the community and she’s driving it.”
”This is a very challenging job, and the more we can do to educate each other and outside partners, the easier it is to work together instead of pushing and pulling against each other.”
Kimberly Scaccia
The culture Scaccia has helped build for her organization has been instrumental in helping her team embrace the benefits of artificial intelligence. With around 150,000 claims generated monthly, and about 30,000 of those needing to be reviewed by a coder, Scaccia simply doesn’t have enough labor to devote to the effort. So, in October of last year, Scaccia’s team went live with a computer-assisted coding application.
The results were immediate. Uncoded charts were reduced by ten thousand in three weeks.
“At the same time, I wanted my people to understand that this was not about replacing anyone’s job,” the VP explains. “This is about helping you operate at the time of your licensure. That’s my goal. I don’t want anyone to feel undervalued in the work that they do. It was a way to cut down on ‘task’ and move to ‘talent’.”
The sell to her staff was likely less taxing because of how much time Scaccia gives to her people.
“There’s a lot of educating and change of terminology that needs to happen in our work,” Scaccia says. “It’s not about being aggressive; it’s about teaching each other everyone else’s perspective. This is a very challenging job, and the more we can do to educate each other and outside partners, the easier it is to work together instead of pushing and pulling against each other.”
Kimberly Scaccia has “it,” and she’s using it to help her entire team grow at Mercyhealth.
Arintra automates medical coding for large hospitals using generative AI and clinical NLP. Arintra enhances financial performance and reduces payor compliance risks of healthcare provider organizations through the automation of critical revenue cycle tasks of medical coding and billing. Integrated seamlessly with leading EHR systems (including Epic), Arintra autonomously generates claims and submits them for billing with zero intervention, while ensuring zero workflow change. We are proud to collaborate with Kimberly Scaccia and the Mercyhealth team, in supporting their revenue cycle management automation objectives. Our clients include health systems, IPAs, FQHCs and MSOs.
As a leading healthcare revenue cycle management provider, Aspirion helps hospitals and health systems nationwide in recovering earned revenue, specializing in the most challenging claim types. This includes addressing all denial types, underpayments, aged accounts receivables, and nuanced claims including Motor Vehicle Accident, Workers’ Compensation, Veterans Affairs-TRICARE, and Out-of-State Medicaid. Aspirion’s success is driven by its proprietary revenue cycle workflow technology and team of highly-skilled healthcare, legal, and technology professionals. This synergy enables Aspirion to attain the highest recovery yield promptly for its healthcare partners, showcasing its efficiency in navigating complex financial challenges within the healthcare industry. Visit aspirion.com.
