Steward of Our Financial Enterprise
The Business Office Staff. The group is assembled on the roof patio of the Business Office, located on the eighth floor of 650 First Avenue.
When asked about his accomplishments during his time at NYU, Mr. Okhiria doesn’t focus on the money first — rather he goes back to the people. He is most proud of the team he has nurtured in the Radiology Business Office, and of their individual growth and development. Marlon Ketani started as a financial analyst working first for the School of Medicine and then the Radiology Department. He now is the Financial Manager for Radiology, with a staff of three reporting to him. Cassandra Maragh was a billing clerk when she came to NYU; now she is the billing manager, overseeing twenty-five coders, billers, payment-posting clerks, and A/R follow-up staff. Finally, Ilene Rattner came to NYU after running a small scheduling group at Long Island Jewish Hospital and now manages all scheduling, verification, and customer services with a team of twelve in her group. Moreover, this focus on staff development and promotion is not just at the top management level. Assistant managers such as Astrid Jean-Louis, Dawnette Simpson, and Peggy Francis all joined the NYU team in entry-level positions, and, with the development of their skills and by assuming increasing responsibility, have enjoyed significant career advances.
Mr. Okhiria is also proud of the cultural change he has nurtured in the Business Office. When he arrived, the billing group was divided into two separate outpatient and inpatient entities that did not cooperate with or support one another. Scheduling was decentralized and had lost its focus on meeting the needs of the patients and referring physicians. Over the last eight years, these groups have been merged under one roof, with an entirely reorganized structure and, more importantly, a service-oriented culture instilled in the teams. The level of professionalism has been significantly heightened, with a greater sense of individual and group functional responsibility. Every member of the team is familiar with the goals that must be achieved, is cognizant of his or her role in fulfilling those goals, and is dedicated towards achieving that end. Efficiency has also been enhanced with new IT software (billing system, document imaging system, web scheduling system, etc.) and new processes to automate many of the Business Office functions. The newest initiative has been an outsourcing effort, where some work is sent overseas to a company in India that can provide rapid turnaround and support for select functions (especially coding and payment posting). This change has been accomplished without negative employment consequences for the existing staff, which have all been re-trained/re-assigned to new administrative functions, thus compounding the benefit of the project to the department.
What does our “flight steward” see on the horizon for the Radiology Department? Like everyone else in the field, he is trying to assess the implications of, and prepare for, the current and planned Medicare reimbursement cuts, and the insurance company cuts that will likely follow. In his own words, “This is going to be a challenging reimbursement climate.” But, taking his lead from Department Chairman Robert I. Grossman, M.D., Mr. Okhiria is focusing on continued business expansion as our flight plan. Not only will the department enlarge its core radiology services, increase its teleradiology services to outside practices, and extend its compilation of clinical imaging sites, Mr. Okhiria intends to pursue growth in our billing and financial management services. Opportunities to market NYU Radiology’s expertise and success in billing, collection, and A/R management areas, and to provide those services for other groups both within and outside NYU, will be sought. At the same time, renewed focus on our current billing efforts to guarantee optimal management of A/R, to reduce the number of inappropriate insurance company rejections, and to decrease the revenue cycle time from image interpretation to cash collection, will be indefatigably sustained.
Mr. Okhiria’s professional history is the stuff of those great American Dream stories: an example of the value and benefit of diligent hard work, conscientious educational pursuit, and uncompromising attention to details and integrity. In his case, he was born to a position of honor and respect as son of the village chief, but, in an entirely different world, he has earned gratitude and admiration from the Department of Radiology as the captain of its financial enterprise.
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