Case Study: Adventist Health System achieves a 10% increase in clean claims rate with Cerner Patient Accounting

Clinically-driven revenue cycle nets cleaner claims for Adventist Health System

Adventist Health System (AHS), one of the largest non-profit health systems in the U.S. with 45 hospitals and nine Central Billing Offices across ten states, faced a fragmented revenue cycle: a legacy system pulling from 25 disparate databases, limited encounter-level views, and manual tracking via spreadsheets and email that hindered claim cleanliness and staff accountability. In 2013 AHS began rolling out a new clinically-driven revenue cycle solution to address those gaps.

By implementing Cerner Patient Accounting—consolidating data into three databases and offering multi-level views (charge, claim, encounter, account) and payer/provider/patient perspectives—AHS integrated clinical and financial workflows, increased transparency and accountability, and embedded checks that improved clinician documentation. Over two years this approach lifted the clean claims rate by 10%, preserved cash collections through go-lives, and streamlined issue tracking, with additional implementations planned.

Adventist Health System

Ken Ursin

Corporate Director of Patient Financial Services