Eastern Health consolidates 16 billing systems into one enterprise-wide solution

Melbourne’s Eastern Health has completed its project to streamline multiple billing processes into one enterprise-wide billing solution, replacing 16 different billing systems with PowerHealth’s Power Billing and Revenue Collection (PBRC) platform.

Eastern Health has used PowerHealth’s costing product PowerPerformance Manager (PPM) for over 15 years but has now added the billing element. It also rolled out mobile functionality for the PBRC system earlier this year.

Eastern Health’s project manager for the single billing system Marina Hocking said the project was established to govern five streams of work, covering system consolidation as well as business transformation.

“It has been a ground-breaking journey and certainly worth the effort,” Ms Hocking said in a statement. “Improvements in patient experience were a major focus of the project, along with increases in revenue capture and improved operational efficiency and it’s great to see these outcomes are being achieved.”

The business case for the project included a review of existing system and process capability, which showed that some revenue was not raised due to process and system complexity.

According to PowerHealth, the enterprise-wide system is now simplifying processes and improving effectiveness. Financial benefits to date are 19 per cent above the business case forecast, PowerHealth says.

The new system has also supported the transition to work from home during COVID and remains a sustainable flexible solution, used across multiple working locations and sites.

It is now managing the billing for the full patient journey across the emergency department, inpatient and outpatient, theatre and prosthetic billing, pharmacy, allied health, transition care, ambulatory care, pathology, medical imaging and cardiology services.

PowerHealth director Brett Michael said his team had worked with Eastern Health on three other allied initiatives, including an integrated mail house with PBRC that provides the ability to automatically generate patient correspondence by SMS, email or mail.

There was also the design and delivery of PBRC Mobile, which uses a hand-held electronic device for clinicians to record services for billing; and integration with Eastern Health’s rostering system to obtain clinician roster information and assist in identification of potential missed billing for services performed based on rostered hours.

PowerHealth is a subsidiary of Telstra Health.