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Financial Improvement Taskforce demonstrates continued success in standardizing system practices

In January 2024, Penn State Health leaders created the Financial Improvement Taskforce – Project FIT 24 – to help close a fiscal year budget gap. The taskforce was successful in helping the system hit its budget target. Because of this success, the team moved forward with Project FIT 25 to find more ways to save money and improve how things are done across the system.

The Project FIT 25 team has partnered with staff across the system to focus on work in progress for system standardization, patient access, people and the newest priority, revenue integrity. Revenue integrity helps improve clinical documentation to support accurate and complete billing.

Project FIT 25 progress to date includes:

  • Access
    • Implementing virtual transition of care clinics to ensure discharged patients see a primary care physician for follow-up within the prescribed timeframe
    • Increasing discharge follow-ups to reduce patient readmissions, using Emergency Department virtual smart chats to check on patients
    • Increasing patient access to MRIs through new hires and the addition of Deep Resolve technology, which can shorten scan times and produce higher resolution imaging
    • Reducing radiology no-show impact through new workflows to fill appointments
  • Standardization
    • Improving referral patterns and reducing the number of patients who go to other health systems, thereby increasing the net total spend for patients with Penn State Health primary care providers
    • Increasing the number of specialty pharmacy 340 B prescriptions filled, reducing prescription leakage to outside pharmacies
    • Adding specialty practices to the Referral Center, to increase the number of patients scheduled within three days
  • People
    • Reducing clinical contract labor costs and travel costs through renegotiated rates and updated policies
    • Identifying cost savings opportunities within benefit plans and recruitment practices
    • Implementing a new non-clinical contract through AMN/Randstad
    • Updating the leadership structure and refining certain administrative positions
  • Revenue Integrity
    • Increasing revenue by improving service to charge reconciliation – ensuring every service provided is captured, billed and reimbursed
    • Increasing revenue by improving clinical documentation and appropriate coding for patients’ severity of illness and clinical treatment – documentation handbook created
    • Increasing accurate billing through charge/charge description master alignment

Some of this work has been adopted systemwide, and other initiatives are still rolling out.

Leaders encourage employees to submit Project Fit 25 ideas for consideration. Proposed projects must meet these criteria:

  • Immediate financial impact
  • Connected to an organizational goal
  • Focused on work in progress
  • Aligned to rapid improvement support – three to six months

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