Autonomous Coding Tech Boosts Revenue 5.1% at Mercyhealth

For the Midwestern health system, the coding process change has gone beyond improving accuracy – it has strengthened how staff operate across the entire revenue cycle, from documentation through denial management.

Mercyhealth is a health system with 200 care locations in Wisconsin and Illinois. Not too long ago, one of its biggest challenges was keeping up with the volume of chart work while still ensuring staff were fully capturing the care delivered.

THE CHALLENGE

The organization was growing quickly, and chart volumes had increased to more than 130,000 per month. However, coding resources had not scaled at the same pace. As a result, a portion of encounters moved forward without full coding review, which created gaps in consistency and opportunities to more accurately reflect the care provided.

"At the same time, our coding team supported a range of priorities, denials, audits, provider questions and revenue opportunities for new services," recalled Kelly Pierson, director of coding and clinical documentation integrity at Mercyhealth.

"This often meant shifting focus between urgent needs, making it difficult to stay ahead of the work or operate as proactively as we would have liked. It became clear the demand for the team was continuing to grow and it wasn't something we could sustainably manage with traditional approaches alone.

"Ultimately, we knew we needed a more scalable way to support our growth – one that would allow the team to spend less time chasing volume and more time focusing on accuracy and insights and strengthening overall performance," she added.

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