How Providence is Navigating Payer Friction & Rapid Technological Change
How Providence is Navigating Payer Friction & Rapid Technological Change
Publish Date: 2026-04-28 06:06:00
Source Domain: www.healthleadersmedia.com
Providence Chief Revenue Cycle Officer Ryan Thompson shares how the health system is combating administrative friction by pairing a complementary tech ecosystem with empathetic, patient-centered frontline solutions.
Complexities in the revenue cycle do not merely impact the bottom line for health systems; they directly influence patient behavior and perception.
At Providence, Chief Revenue Cycle Officer Ryan Thompson is focusing on the administrative friction that causes patients to delay care while navigating the proliferation of new technologies. As the health system explores how tools like AI can solve complex billing scenarios, Thompson emphasizes that modern revenue cycle leadership requires balancing technology adoption with empathetic patient communication and a steadfast strategy to combat organizational distraction.
How Denials Create a Ripple Effect
A critical challenge facing revenue cycle leaders is the administrative friction between payers and providers, which can ultimately cause patients to interrupt or delay their necessary clinical care. Thompson emphasizes that both insurance companies and healthcare providers must work together to solve this.
“It’s incumbent on both payers and providers to identify what we can do differently to mitigate that friction that causes patients to interrupt or delay care,” Thompson says.
This dynamic is especially evident in denial management, where mix-ups can create substantial downstream confusion regarding patient liability. When a hospital must engage in a prolonged back-and-forth with a payer over a denied claim, it delays the final adjudication of a patient’s financial responsibility. If a health system chooses to bill the patient early while simultaneously working on the denial, and the claim is eventually successfully appealed, the patient’s liability can change unexpectedly.
Centering Empathy on the Tech-Enabled Frontlines
The confusion generated by payer friction frequently falls on frontline staff….
