Those figures illustrate a problem that remains relevant to Tennessee providers: delivering care and recording revenue don't guarantee money arrives when it's needed. A claim can wait for missing information, sit in a billing queue, or return for correction. The Macon experience gives hospitals a documented example of how changing those workflows may release cash already tied up in receivables.
Macon's billing change produced measurable collection gains
Macon's old revenue cycle system was struggling even as the hospital's workload grew. Its chief financial officer reported a roughly 14% decline in collection performance, while patient volume and expenses had grown and total collections remained flat. The hospital began preparing for a replacement in October 2019 and switched systems on March 31, 2020, despite the disruption caused by COVID-19.
The independently reported Macon Community Hospital case describes improvements in billing control, clinical documentation, and staff training. The hospital could submit and correct more claims directly, reducing its dependence on an outside billing process. However, the figures describe one hospital's experience, based on management's account. They don't isolate the software's effect from staffing, changes in patient volume, or other conditions during the pandemic.
The useful starting point is finding where claims lose time
An organization facing delayed deposits should first determine which claims are stalled and why. Revenue cycle staff can separate unpaid accounts by payer, age, claim status, and denial reason, then trace recurring problems to registration, documentation, coding, or follow-up. This makes it easier to distinguish a slow payer from a preventable internal delay.
The same review helps set the scope of outside support. Teams assessing Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management Services in Tennessee can compare proposed assessments and process changes against their actual backlog. A service arrangement should identify who owns corrections and how unresolved accounts will be escalated. Otherwise, changing technology may leave the underlying delay untouched.
National payment friction makes collection delays costly
Tennessee hospitals operate within a wider payment system where getting paid often requires substantial administrative work. In its March 2026 Costs of Caring report, the American Hospital Association estimated that U.S. hospitals spent $43 billion in 2025 trying to collect payments owed by insurers for care already delivered. The figure is a national estimate of collection-related expense, not an amount of missing Tennessee revenue.
The cost matters because a disputed claim can consume staff time even when the insurer eventually pays. Appeals may require medical records or additional review, while the hospital still has payroll and supply bills to meet. Reducing unnecessary rework can therefore improve operating cash flow in 2 ways: payments may arrive sooner, and fewer hours may be spent collecting them. Neither outcome is automatic; providers need to test whether their most common delays are under their control.
Accurate documentation helps prevent payment problems upstream
A clean claim depends on reliable information from the patient's first contact through final coding. Incorrect insurance details can cause a rejection before substantive review, while insufficient clinical documentation can complicate payment after submission. Staff need checks at the point where errors originate, followed by a clear process for correcting exceptions.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported a 6.55% estimated Medicare fee-for-service improper-payment rate for fiscal year 2025 in its official payment findings. That figure is not a hospital claim-denial rate. It includes different kinds of payment errors, including situations involving insufficient information, and shows why documentation controls matter. Providers comparing Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management Solutions in Tennessee should ask how an implementation will detect errors and assign responsibility before claims become overdue.
Electronic workflows can reduce administrative work, with limits
Paper-based checks, manual status inquiries, and repeated data entry make it harder to see when a claim stops moving. Electronic eligibility checks and claim tracking may reduce staff effort, provided the hospital's systems exchange accurate information. Technology should make exceptions easier to find rather than simply moving the same work onto another screen.
A faster system still needs accurate inputs and a clear process for resolving exceptions. When comparing Revenue Cycle Management Solutions in Tennessee, leaders should check whether eligibility records, claim status updates, and corrections remain visible across systems. The useful comparison is the amount of manual work removed per claim and whether payment timing improves. Without those measurements, staff may spend less time on screens while collections remain unchanged.
Service agreements should follow the hospital's actual bottleneck
Macon changed its billing platform and trained staff to work differently. Another hospital may already have suitable software but need help cleaning up denials or connecting an electronic health record to billing operations. The 2025 CAQH Index, released in February 2026, estimated that electronic transactions helped U.S. healthcare avoid $258 billion in administrative costs during 2024. Its published findings identified a further $21 billion in possible savings from wider electronic processing. These are national administrative cost estimates, not additional reimbursements guaranteed to Tennessee hospitals.
VALiNTRY360 describes a process that includes workflow assessment, implementation planning, system integration, training, and continuing support. For organizations reviewing Revenue Cycle Management Services in Tennessee, those are useful areas to examine in a proposed scope of work. The agreement should specify deliverables, responsible teams, data access safeguards, and the method used to verify results. Published services alone don't establish what a particular provider will recover.
Measure cash received before calling the project successful
Accounts-receivable days should be measured alongside net collections, first-pass acceptance, denial trends, and the cost of collecting each dollar. A lower outstanding balance can look favorable because of a write-off rather than a payment. Comparing cash deposits with net patient revenue, while accounting for payer mix and seasonal volume, helps avoid that mistake.
Hospitals should record a baseline before changing workflows and check the same measures at agreed intervals afterward. Reviews should identify which claim categories improved and which still need attention. That approach tests whether quicker billing has produced money in the bank, instead of reporting activity as a financial result.
What the Tennessee case means for the next
