Readiness to Revenue:
Quorum Health’s Onboarding Journey
For many rural and community hospital leaders, the challenge of revenue cycle management often comes down to a single reality. They believe some payers may be underpaying them, but lack the resources they need to follow up and verify this information.
Quorum Health, a Brentwood, Tennessee-based operator of rural and non-urban hospitals and multispecialty physician practices across 12 markets in nine states, found itself in this exact position.
Laura Fey, Vice President of Physician Services and Financial Operations at Quorum Health, explains the specific challenge they were facing. “I had CFOs in our various markets running reports and telling us, ‘Hey, it doesn’t look like we’re getting paid what we should be getting paid.’ But I didn’t have the visibility to tell them yes or no.”
A Partner Versus a Vendor
Fey began researching technology solutions that could be used to identify where payers were not paying Quorum appropriately. But she also sought a partner who had a solution that offered advanced contract modeling capabilities and wanted to start with Quorum’s network of medical specialty clinics.
After evaluating several options, Quorum selected SlicedHealth’s Variance Analysis solution and SlicedIQ, SlicedHealth’s AI-powered intelligence solution.
“The platforms stood out over the others in terms of ease of use and what it could do for us,” says Fey. “But what also stood out was the partnership, the service. I got a good feeling. They were very open and honest about what it could and couldn’t do.”
Collaboration, Not Just Implementation
For some leaders working within rural hospital and specialty medical clinic billing, the words “onboarding” and “implementation” might trigger concerns about straining limited resources or disrupting existing workflows that are performing well. But, says Fey, the collaboration with SlicedHealth has only been positive and helpful.
After initially coming on-site at Quorum for the onboarding, the SlicedHealth team now connects weekly with Fey to maintain momentum and answer questions during implementation. When challenges have arisen, SlicedHealth has been quick to react and help address them, says Fey.
The Discovery: Underpayments and More Underpayments
The more SlicedHealth dug in, the more underpayments surfaced. Rankin’s team initially tried to manage the appeals internally, but the workload quickly overwhelmed them.
“Our business office manager came to me and said, ‘Jim, we can’t keep up. Either I hire another biller, or we let SlicedHealth take over,’ he recalls. “So, we amended our agreement, and they took the baton. Now, it’s completely hands-free for us.”
With SlicedHealth handling contract enforcement and revenue recovery, Rankin’s internal team stayed focused on high-priority tasks, confident that every payer was being held accountable.
The Initial Impact: Improved Insight, Process and Financial Performance
Since partnering with SlicedHealth, Quorum Health has:
Gained clear visibility into payer reimbursement accuracy
Identified and pursued high-value underpaid claims early
Received hands-on support through collaborative onboarding process
Built a trusted, ongoing partnership with a vendor that delivers results
“The platforms stood out over the others in terms of ease of use and what it could do for us,” says Fey. “But what also stood out was the partnership, the service. I got a good feeling. They were very open and honest about what it could and couldn’t do.”
Laura Fey, VP of Physician Services and Financial Operations, Quorum Health
Early Wins with SlicedIQ and Variance Identification
The primary hurdle in the onboarding and implementation process has been in locating outdated payer contracts and fee schedules across Quorum’s high volume of agreements. On top of this, Quorum was previously a part of another organization, which has added to the complexity, explains Fey.
However, for the payer contracts that have been finalized and are now loaded, Quorum has already begun payment variance identification and is actively addressing underpayments. The platform also allows them to immediately see which claims are most worth their time to pursue, contributing to receiving larger payments faster.
And now with contract modeling capabilities, Quorum is able to simulate “what-if” scenarios for upcoming negotiations, assessing the revenue impact of potential terms before they are signed and giving them significantly greater leverage in negotiations.
Preparing for a Successful Onboarding and Implementation
While Quorum continues to load contracts and refine their denial management strategies during the initial phase, Fey offers some advice to other rural hospital and medical specialty clinic billing leaders on preparing for a successful launch.
“Have copies of your agreements and fee schedules available. That has been our main challenge,” she says. “The SlicedHealth team has been wonderful and fantastic in helping us work through everything. We’re on a really good track.”
About SlicedHealth
SlicedHealth brings clarity and control to the revenue cycle for health systems and community hospitals. Grounded in hands-on support and built on a rules-based foundation, our platform equips hospital CEOs and CFOs with the tools they need to optimize contract performance, streamline operations without additional staff, and maximize revenue recovery. Our next-generation contract management platform delivers real-time visibility into hospital payer contracts and revenue cycle performance. Driven by SlicedIQ, our AI-powered engine that provides detailed, easy-to-use insights for contract modeling and variance analysis, the SlicedHealth platform automates better decisions across the entire revenue cycle. From claim estimation and business intelligence to a robust price transparency module built for compliance, SlicedHealth helps all hospital leaders recover revenue lost to denials and underpayments. Learn more here.
