Despite changes, Cerner must improve on delivery to customers
Research indicates confidence in Feinberg as CEO, but RevElate is a key in filling the company’s gap in financial solutions.
October 2021 brought big changes to Cerner with the appointment of David Feinberg as Cerner’s new CEO and the announcement of RevElate as Cerner’s new revenue cycle solution. These changes, in addition to Oracle’s acquisition of Cerner that was made official in June, have left many of Cerner’s clients looking for answers, believing that Cerner stands at a crossroads. Many of these clients have reached out to KLAS, wanting to better understand their peers’ perceptions of the changes. So, in an effort to help those clients, KLAS is publishing a series of reports in 2022 focused on Cerner.
The first two reports from KLAS’ road map are already available. Cerner Flash Insights 2022 was published in February and shares initial customer perceptions of changes and Cerner’s performance over the last five years. The Cerner Soarian Financials Pulse Check 2022 was published in June and looks more closely at Soarian Financials’ performance as a possible indicator of what the experience with RevElate may be like.
Perception of the new CEO
Cerner has had three CEOs in the last five years, but their KLAS scores have remained mostly unchanged. Customers’ initial feelings about David Feinberg as CEO are cautiously optimistic, and that is addressed in the Flash Insights report.
With Feinberg’s clinical background and experience in leading healthcare companies, customers believe his approach and influence could be different but also report that potential outcomes remain to be seen. As part of the Oracle acquisition, Feinberg will continue to lead the Cerner division.
Feinberg has some difficult challenges ahead, and customers are looking for signs of what impact he will have on the culture at Cerner. For example, it will be interesting to see how Feinberg will tackle key issues like driving consistent customer success and changing customers’ perceptions that Cerner has a record of breaking promises and nickel-and-diming. He also needs his team to successfully establish Cerner’s new revenue cycle product.
Revenue cycle implementation consistency in question
Cerner says that their new revenue cycle solution, RevElate, will be built on elements of Soarian Financials and Cerner Patient Accounting (CPA). Because Soarian Financials was not Cerner’s go-forward product, KLAS hasn’t actively targeted the solution for a few years, so the Pulse Check report is based on data collected during the last 24 months, with an emphasis on data collected in the last six months.
Cerner has yet to prove that it can guide a successful revenue cycle implementation. Answering that major question will be essential in driving success with RevElate. Customers of both Soarian Financials and Cerner Patient Accounting have consistently reported challenges with their revenue cycle implementations and the resources assigned to them. Customers also say that Cerner’s consultants are inexperienced and often lack knowledge of the product and of the provider organizations’ workflows.
The Pulse Check report found newer customers (those who have used Cerner products for five years or less) are likely to face usability issues, and long-time customers of Soarian Financials are doing much better. These customers say that it takes time to get the product where it needs to be and that it isn’t very flashy, but they learn what to expect, and with their own internal efforts, they are seeing tangible financial outcomes. This is true even for larger customers, which have been a major shortfall for the Cerner Patient Accounting customer base.
When compared to CPA, Soarian Financials is seen more positively in terms of the customers’ satisfaction – some 57 percent of CPA customers remain dissatisfied because of persistent issues with implementation, functionality and workflows.
The importance of this next year
Over the next year, we will see early evidence as to whether Cerner will make the changes necessary to drive consistent customer success with RevElate. That will set the tone for Cerner’s execution under David Feinberg and Oracle.
In the meantime, the research published so far should help clients get a clearer picture of where Cerner stands today. To gain further insight on Cerner’s past performance as well as learn more about other customers’ current perceptions, the Cerner Flash Insights and Cerner Soarian Financials Pulse Check reports provide insights.
KLAS’ next report on the Cerner research road map is being published this summer. It will look more closely at what outcomes clients are seeing since Feinberg has taken the reins.