Healthcare Payer Solutions: Managing Complexity
Ask the Experts

With Barbara A. Boykin, President, Oleen Healthcare Information Management, Inc.

Q: What Should Healthcare Executives Look for in a Payer System Today?

A: You have to be careful about balancing ease-of-use and ease-of-configuration. If you have a lot of employees touching the system, you need to make things as simple for them as possible. On the other hand, achieving that ease-of-use can turn your initial configuration into a nightmare. So you have to balance the two. It’s also important to select a solution that fits well with your particular needs and existing processes. If it’s too disruptive, the cost to your organization can be devastating. The vendor behind the product is very important, too. Responsive customer service is a critical factor in any payer system deployment. It’s often as important as the technology itself.

Q: What Impact is Payer Systems Technology Having on the Healthcare Industry?

A: Technology is playing a crucial role in enabling us to cope with the increased complexity created by government regulations and market forces. It’s also helping us to reduce errors, streamline processes and make better decisions. At the same time, the technology itself is becoming so complex that it can be a real challenge for healthcare organizations to manage it.

Q: What Do You Think about Outsourcing Payer Systems?

These partnerships can deliver a lot of value to the customer. Software developers tend to focus almost exclusively on the functionality of their applications. Technology service firms like Unisys and IBM have a broader view of IT best practices, so they can do a better job of helping healthcare companies fulfill all of their critical requirements – such as reducing their long-term cost of ownership, ensuring continuous system availability, optimizing hardware scalability and integrating disparate applications.

Barbara A. Boykin, President of Washington, DC-based healthcare information systems consulting firm Oleen Healthcare Information Management, Inc., is a twenty-year veteran of the healthcare industry. Her remarkably broad experience ranges from performing outcomes research for federal agencies to a stint as a healthcare industry lending specialist for several major banks. In this interview, Ms. Boykin shares her insights about the state of payer system technology.

Reprinted with permission of Unisys. For more information, please visit www.unisys.com.