From The Times Tribune -
In an effort to expand its relationship with a revenue cycle management company, Baptist Health Systems has eliminated 37 positions spanning eight hospitals this week, 15 of those positions have impacted employees at Baptist Health Corbin.
The Public Relations Manager with Baptist Health Systems, Kit Fullenlove Barry, said the employees impacted will receive severance pay and assistance with job search resources.
"It is too early to tell how many people may ultimately be affected as we hope that many will apply for other spots within Baptist Health," said Barry.
Several employees in the Patient Access Department of Baptist Health Corbin were also notified that in the near future their jobs were being moved to Louisville and Lexington. These employees were given the opportunity to apply for these jobs in other cities.
Barry told the Times-Tribune these eliminations are unrelated and she would have to get back on a later date regarding these.
Per Barry, AGS Health, Inc. is an award-winning revenue cycle management company headquartered in Newark, New Jersey, that provides medical coding and other services to health systems, physician groups and other healthcare providers. AGS is currently providing coding services to Baptist Health for Primary Care, Physical Therapy (PT), Ancillary, Emergency and Endoscopy Surgery. No other coding areas of responsibility are affected.
Baptist Health Corbin Public Relation Representative Becky Stewart said AGS Health, Inc. has successfully worked with Baptist Health for several months. AGS will now handle Ancillary and Emergency Department medical coding.
This co-sourcing arrangement -- using both internal and AGS resources for medical coding -- will help reduce costs and improve turnaround time while continuing to provide quality service. The increased complexity of hospital billing and economic pressures have made outsourcing for revenue cycle capabilities a common practice in the healthcare industry. A recent survey found that half of healthcare organizations have others perform at least some of those functions and up to 72 percent plan to do so by 2020.