At A Glance
Memorial Health used Registration QA (RQA) to boost claims performance, ease pressure on staff and improve the patient billing experience. Within six months, final-pass accuracy jumped from 60% to 97% and eligibility denials fell below 1%.TABLE OF CONTENTS
Challenge: Registration errors were creating avoidable downstream work
Layoffs and rising patient volumes put pressure on Memorial Health’s ambulatory access team. Like many health systems, the organization had to ask smaller teams to do more with less. In the rush to keep up, more registrations entered the system with gaps and inaccuracies that later led to billing delays, eligibility denials and calls from frustrated patients. Eventually, the registration accuracy rate dipped to 60%. Staff morale suffered as stretched teams spent more time fixing avoidable errors instead of moving work forward.
Alayna Tuetken, Director of Patient Access Services at Memorial Health, says, “Everyone thought that someone would clean it up later. But that someone didn’t exist anymore.”
The financial impacts were hard to ignore. “It can cost up to $400 to rework a single claim,” Tuetken says. “That’s money we can’t afford to throw away.”
Marcena Urish, Director of Patient Financial Services, says the issue didn’t just affect the balance sheet. Errors and delays were reaching patients in the form of confusing and incorrect bills, prompting a rise in calls.
“When a patient gets a bill for $2,000 instead of $200 because of a registration error, they’re calling, they’re upset and they start to lose trust. Fixing that on the front end protects both the patient and the organization.”
– Marcena Urish, Director of Patient Financial Services, Memorial Health
Solution: Making accuracy everyone’s responsibility
Memorial Health already had Experian Health’s Registration QA in place, but the teams weren’t fully leveraging its capabilities. Registration QA automatically flags problems in registration data before and at the point of service, generating customized real-time alerts so staff can step in and take remedial action. This means registration issues can be identified and resolved within hours of a patient registering, not days or weeks later during billing.
At Memorial Health, these alerts were being overlooked. Front-end teams were not fully aware of the disruption that followed when errors slipped through to billing and claims.
“Our colleagues care deeply about patients, but they didn’t always realize how much their work upstream affects the patient’s experience. Once they understood that connection, everything changed.”
– Alayna Tuetken, Director of Patient Access Services at Memorial Health
To fix the problem, and after realizing that Registration QA wasn’t being used to its full potential, management focused on building ownership at the front end, rather than relying on downstream revenue cycle teams to correct errors after they occurred. The first step was to train over 300 staff members on how to use Registration QA. They also received training on how the quality of front-end data affects the rest of the revenue cycle and what that means for the patient experience.
The second step was addressing known causes of avoidable errors. Memorial Health implemented Bad Plan Code to prevent denials resulting from incorrect insurance plan selection. They also used Power Reporting for extra at-a-glance insights into data trends and performance issues. Managers could review activity at the user, department and facility level, helping them fine-tune workflows and allocate staff more effectively as patient volumes changed.
Finally, leadership reinforced the sense of shared accountability by making team performance measurable and visible. They used monthly dashboards and individual scorecards to introduce friendly competition and acknowledge top performers.
Outcome: Cleaner data within months
Six months after tightening up their use of Registration QA, Memorial Health saw measurable improvements:
| Registration QA Results |
| – Final-pass accuracy increased from 60% to 97% |
| – Eligibility denials dropped below 1% |
| – Insurance plan-related calls fell by 23.9% |
For patients, things worked better. Fewer registration mistakes meant fewer billing inaccuracies to call up and sort out. Billing became more predictable, with fewer surprises after the visit.
Staff morale also increased as claims stopped bouncing back. Registration was no longer “just intake,” but a chance to set up the patient’s visit properly from the start.
What’s next?
Memorial Health plans to build on this progress by continuing to invest in staff training, to reinforce the link between accurate registration and the patient experience. The organization will roll out the Registration QA program to two additional critical access hospitals, expanding its reach in the region.
Learn more about how Registration QA improves claims performance, increases staff confidence and boosts patient trust.
