Cerner names RCM expert Jeff Hurst to lead revenue cycle business

Cerner President Zane Burke announced on Tuesday that the company has hired Jeff Hurst to be its President of Cerner RevWorks and Senior Vice President of Cerner Revenue Cycle Management.

The health IT giant has been working with Hurst at Florida Hospital, a Cerner shop, for more than 10 years and the move is part of the vendor's ongoing efforts to grab a big chunk of the revenue cycle management market that analysts have identified as ripe for replacement.

Cerner's rivals in the RCM fray include some of its competitors in the EHR realm, notably Epic Systems, McKesson, Meditech, and others.

"It's a very unique opportunity to add to our leadership team," Burke told Healthcare IT News, citing Hurst's "level of expertise, both from a vision and an operational perspective."

[Also: Universal Health Services picks Cerner for revenue cycle platform]

Hurst, who has been with Florida Hospital for more than 17 years, currently serves as senior vice president of finance at Florida Hospital. In this capacity he directs all financial and clinical revenue cycle functions and has responsibility for key organizational strategies, including capacity and throughput, ED utilization, care coordination, patient advocacy and pricing transparency.

"The connectivity between the EHR and revenue cycle that ultimately drives your payment stream is becoming extremely important."  Hurst said. "In fact I would go so far as to suggest that at this point, it's really critical to have that integration."

Consumers are expecting more today than ever before, Hurst added, more transparency and more simplification.

"The prospect of having one integrated solution that Cerner brings to the market that ties the clinical side and the financial side to optimize outcomes and increase payments for better end user experience is probably one of the biggest demands of the market," Hurst said.

[Also: Revenue cycle changes are inevitable, Cerner reimbursement chief says]

Burke added that moving forward Cerner clients are likely to have fewer resources and will be challenged to accomplish more with what budget they do have for revenue cycle management.

"Really our competition is how successful we can make our clients and how we get the value from the solutions they have," Burke said. "I think that's truly the biggest competition in this space for years to come – to have our clients ultimately be the winner at the end of the day."

Hurst will join Cerner on September 1.

This story first appeared in Healthcare IT News.

Twitter: @Bernie_HITN