Sandy Hern Presents at National Conference

At a recent conference in San Antonio, Texas, MDH Senior Director of Revenue Cycle Sandy Hern accepted the opportunity to do a presentation.

Thanks to the relationship built with Experian over the past four years, Hern was asked to share her thoughts on the Experian premium eligibility product.

“MDH started using Experian products in 2020 starting with insurance eligibility. It includes features where it can go out and find insurance for patients through coverage discovery. We have alerts that are triggered when there is something wrong in the registration so that we can be as accurate as possible in registration, reducing the re-work for our billing department,” said Hern. “We use other products as well, such as a registration accelerator which allows patients to pre-register through a link sent to their phone, prior authorization which allows our prior authorization team to have direct connections to multiple payers, and patient estimates for patients that are self-pay patients or out of network. It is our responsibility to make sure those patients are informed about the cost of the services prior to the appointment.

“I have worked with Experian since the implementation of the first product, which was insurance eligibility. I have formed relationships with many people at Experian and served as a reference for other companies looking to implement Experian products. I was asked by our business account manager to present our workflow at the Experian High Performance Summit,” said Hern.

Admittedly Hern was a little nervous speaking to the group of nearly 40, although this is not the first time she has presented at a conference.

“A couple years ago I presented patient estimate regulations during a healthcare forum in Chicago,” said Hern. “My presentation was 30 minutes with a question-and-answer session for 30 minutes. Overall the presentation went well. The audience was engaging with many questions.”

An opportunity like this does not come around very often, and Hern was happy to share her insights with the attendees.

“I feel this was an excellent opportunity and I was honored to be asked to speak and to represent McDonough District Hospital. These conferences provide networking opportunities that have become extremely valuable over the years. Not only do we get the chance to connect with other Experian partners, we also meet other facilities that are using our electronic medical record, Cerner.”