Customer Success Stories

Organization:

Rankin County Hospital District is a 15-bed Critical Access Hospital tucked

into the remote Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. Though a smallercommunity hospital, Rankin punches well above its weight, operating a high-volume emergency department, a bustling rural health clinic, an active outpatient lab and radiology department, physical therapy services, a thriving wellness center, and EMS coverage across hundreds of square miles. It’s the kind of rural hospital that holds a community together.

Despite the challenges that often plague rural providers, Rankin is supported by a large tax base and has managed to maintain financial stability under the leadership of CEO Jim Horton. With more than 30 years of experience as a registered nurse and hospital executive, Jim understands both the clinical and financial aspects of healthcare. “We run a tight ship,” he says. “Our business office team is very strong, and we have a business office manager who is top-notch – our revenue cycle is fast and efficient. On paper, everything looks great, and frankly, that’s why it took a while to see the need to work with SlicedHealth.”

Objective:

Revenue cycle efficiencies aside, Jim also understands that strong surface metrics don’t always tell the full story. What if the hospital was leaving money on the table and didn’t even know it? There was one challenge Rankin knew they were up against – complexity, lower payments, and excessive denials from Medicare Advantage contracts.

Rankin’s financial team began to grow uneasy with the rise of Medicare Advantage plans. Unlike traditional Medicare, which is federally regulated, these plans are run by private insurers and often come with unclear coverage criteria, frequent denials, and reimbursement rates that can be difficult to pin down.

“We actually encourage our community not to choose Medicare Advantage,” Jim says. “It doesn’t function the same way as Medicare. We’ve had patients improving in swing bed care, only for the insurer to suddenly deny coverage. It’s frustrating for us and devastating for patients.”

And while Rankin’s team was diligent with billing, denials, and collections, they had no systematic way to confirm whether payments matched the rates negotiated in their contracts. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” Jim says. “We were billing quickly and getting paid. But no one was checking if what we were paid matched the terms of our contracts.”

The Solution: SlicedHealth Contract Modeling Platform

Through Jim Horton’s extensive industry connections, he was referred to and introduced to the team at SlicedHealth. For Horton, choosing a solution was much more than finding the best technology; it was having a trusted relationship with the people behind the technology. As Jim has shared, long before he concluded needing a technology solution, he knew that, should there be a proven need, he would choose SlicedHealth.

Rankin made the decision to go with SlicedHealth Contract Variance Analysis, a key product module in the Contract Modeling Platform designed to give hospitals full visibility into how much they’re being paid compared to what they’re owed.

The implementation was seamless, with no changes to Rankin’s existing Cerner EHR system; no disruptions to workflow. SlicedHealth loaded Rankin’s payer contracts into their platform and quickly ran a retrospective analysis. The results were shocking.

“I spent months negotiating a deal with a major payer—450% of the Medicare rate,” Jim explains. “But SlicedHealth showed we were getting paid just 98%. That one contract discrepancy alone justified the entire cost of the platform for years.”

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 Results: Reveneu Reclaimed, Staff Unburdened, and a Clear ROI

Since partnering with SlicedHealth, Rankin County Hospital has: