Streamlining Business Processes Improves Bottom Line for Aurora Health Care

Sheila Cisler, 2008 IMAP Award Grand Prize Winner.

Sheila Cisler, Patient Account Representative Lead for Aurora Health Care’s North/Central region hospitals out of Green Bay, WI, began her job a year ago as a resource for 35 employees within the billing office. She saw that her office had several outstanding work compensation claims that, as she put it, were getting old, and no payment or denial had been received from the carrier. “We kept following up hoping to get them resolved,” said Sheila. In talking with her counterparts in Aurora’s Milwaukee office, Sheila learned about the dispute process. After 60 days of filing claims to try to secure payment from the carriers, Milwaukee notifies the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD).

The P&P Leads to Faster Claims Resolution

Sheila worked with the Patient Account Representative Lead from Milwaukee and used her Information Mapping skills to create a policy and procedure document. Known simply as the P&P, it explains how to file and follow up on workmen’s compensation reimbursement disputes with the Wisconsin DWD.

Now, the P&P is used as a resource in both business offices by Patient Account Representatives. It also serves as a training tool for new hires.

“Since August 2008, on 17 accounts, we have collected over $90,000. We’re learning to ask the right questions,” says Sheila, “and Information Mapping helps us do that.”

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Information Mapping Helps Define and Streamline Business Processes Sheila says she is passionate about Information Mapping and helping others understand her department's business processes. “I took my first Information Mapping workshop in August of 2007,” says Sheila. "The workshop was presented by Neil Brace, in our Milwaukee office, who is the Web-based training coordinator for all billing functions and is also an Information Mapping certified instructor. Prior to my Information Mapping training, I documented processes for training purposes, but they were not as easy to follow as Information Mapping documents are.”

Patient Account Reps from Green Bay, WI. Click here to see larger image.

Sheila has been working with Neil to create and document other business processes using the Information Mapping method. Neil does a final review and places them on a company Intranet for both business offices to use. He has overseen the development of a resource library of over 2,000 documents.

Sheila’s manager, Julie Kallies, describes the project: “The goal was to write documentation for staff to use as a reference in doing their daily work and to standardize processes. This would ultimately allow us to design a training program for our newly hired staff.”

“We had very few processes documented when we began our journey of ‘mapping’ them. The first step in this journey was to isolate the most common job tasks/processes. Then we began to gain consensus on what the process steps should be. This became a bit more challenging as our organization has two business offices that perform the same functions, but have operated independently in the past.”

Julie goes on to say, “Sheila has done an outstanding job documenting our business processes and assisting us in becoming more standardized, giving each staff member tools to do his or her job. As we continue to ‘map’ our processes, we continue to see efficiencies. We refer to policy and procedure [documents] when we audit staff and whenever we introduce changes to the current process. The documents assist us in identifying the impact that potential changes may have and have also allowed us to share our processes with other departments.”

A Tool for Improving All Business Communications

Sheila also regularly uses the Information Mapping method to write team meeting agendas and minutes. “I just completed the Making Email Work! classroom workshop led by Neil that will help in making my e-mails more effective.”

Sheila Cisler was the 2008 IMAP Award grand prize winner. We congratulate Sheila and look forward to hearing from her about her future documentation and business process improvements!

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