Articles

How to Strengthen Patient Access in the Age of Digital Health: Tools and Strategies for the Future

Jan 6, 2026

The first point of contact with a healthcare organization isn’t providers. It’s the patient access team—sometimes referred to as the ‘front door’ of an organization—that’s responsible for scheduling and registering patients as well as checking them in for appointments. However, in an age of digital transformation in healthcare, patients increasingly prefer self-service, online options for access. For example, 89% of patients say the ability to schedule appointments anytime via online or mobile tools is important. Recognizing this and similar statistics, healthcare organizations must pivot to meet and exceed patient access expectations. In this article, we’ll provide actionable strategies and tools to improve patient access efficiency, reduce friction, and enhance engagement in the age of digital health. 

 

Understanding the New Digital Expectations of Patients 

Nearly every major consumer-facing industry—particularly retail and financial services—has embraced digital convenience with technology that makes access, payments, and communication faster and easier. Now, patients want those same conveniences in healthcare.

 

Key drivers of digital transformation in healthcare include the following:  

  • Digital innovation, including a rise in mobile health apps and telehealth.  
  • Shift to real-time, transparent patient communication, including ability to contact providers using preferred channels (e.g., text, email, portal, phone, or app) and receive immediate responses regarding price estimates, billing questions, clinical advice, and more. 
  • Movement toward personalized care in which patients expect personalized outreach as well. 

 

Clearly, today’s patients demand a new, digital experience in terms of accessing providers. In fact, for 70% of patients, access is the top factor that drives selection of a new provider. Access includes being able to quickly get an appointment (including being able to schedule online) as well as digital, mobile or social media interaction and telehealth and virtual care appointment offerings. Eighty-nine percent of patients say they’ve switched or stopped seeing their previous healthcare provider due to poor navigation, including insufficient digital/online service and support solutions. 

 

The takeaway? During the digital transformation in healthcare, organizations must adapt to evolving patient preferences or risk losing those patients to more tech-enabled competitors.  

The Role of Patient Access in Revenue Cycle Management 

Patient access is critical to both the financial and patient experience sides of the revenue cycle. On the financial side, patient access sets the stage for the entire revenue cycle. Every claim depends on accurate front-end data. If this data is wrong, incomplete, or outdated, those errors flow through to billing and cause denials, delays, or underpayments. Unfortunately, manual workflows continue to cause countless front-end errors that cause nearly 33% of denials.  

 

On the patient experience side, patient access sets the tone for how patients perceive care quality, transparency, and trust long before they ever see a provider. This experience can make or break a patient’s decision to return for care, follow through with treatment recommendations, and even pay their healthcare bill.  

 

When organizations optimize front-end processes, they simultaneously improve the patient experience and revenue cycle management. Both improvements translate to a healthier bottom line for the organization. 

Tools Transforming Patient Access in the Digital Age 

Many key digital tools—including healthcare automation solutions—are reshaping how patients engage with healthcare systems. These include the following: 

 

  • AI-powered eligibility and authorization. These healthcare automation AI-powered tools routinize insurance verification and pre-authorization checks to reduce errors and shorten registration times. 
  • Chatbots and virtual assistants. These tools that are available 24/7 support patients when they have appointment questions or need assistance with directions or payment, thus freeing up staff for higher-value interactions. 
  • Integrated digital intake forms. These tools allow patients to complete forms at home, speeding check-in and reducing waiting room time. Seventy-seven percent of healthcare consumers are extremely or very interested in completing pre-visit questionnaires online. 
  • Omnichannel patient communication platforms. These tools centralize messaging for reminders, updates, and instructions for personalized outreach to improve attendance and patient satisfaction. 
  • Online patient scheduling and self-service portals. These tools enable patients to book, confirm, or cancel appointments digitally, thus reducing administrative burden and call volume. Not surprisingly, 61% of healthcare consumers say the availability of online patient scheduling is extremely or very important when choosing a new provider, service, or location for care. 

 

Together, these healthcare automation and self-service tools provide organizations with many opportunities to enhance patient satisfaction and cater to patient preferences for digital access. 

Strategies for Strengthening Patient Access Operations 

To strengthen patient access operations, today’s healthcare leaders must: 

 

  • Collaborate across departments. Align patient access, clinical, and billing teams to ensure a consistent, end-to-end patient experience. 
  • Enhance staff training. Train patient access teams to leverage new healthcare technology and healthcare automation solutions effectively while maintaining empathy and accuracy. 
  • Invest in interoperability. Ensure EHR, patient scheduling, patient billing, and patient communication tools share data seamlessly.  
  • Leverage analytics. Use data to identify patient access bottlenecks, peak call times, and patient satisfaction trends.  

 

Organizations that follow these steps will be able to meet and exceed patient expectations by providing a modern, consumer-centric patient experience that mirrors other industries. 

Preparing for the Future of Patient Access 

Patient access is no longer a static function. Forward-thinking organizations now view it as a strategic differentiator. These organizations embrace emerging trends, including AI-driven personalized patient communication, predictive analytics for staffing optimization, and digital identity verification for secure patient data management. They seek to innovate continually and in the spirit of improving financial performance, patient loyalty, and operational efficiency. 

 

Strong patient access services are essential for patient satisfaction and financial sustainability. Healthcare organizations that thrive in the digital age will be those that combine healthcare technology, training, and empathy to deliver seamless access experiences. Remember: A patient’s first click is as important as their first visit. Viewing patient access as an investment in patient relationships helps promote sustainable revenue growth. When organizations unify patient access digitally, they build trust, support revenue integrity, eliminate manual errors, and deliver a modern experience that matches every other industry. 

 

To learn how Revenue Enterprises helps healthcare organizations enhance patient access through healthcare technology, healthcare automation, and expert support, contact us today. 

Karie Bostwick

VP of People and Compliance

As VP of People and Compliance at Revenue Enterprises, Karie Bostwick oversees People functions including recruiting, training, onboarding, engagement and satisfaction. Additionally, she is responsible for compliance training, oversight and monitoring.

Karie has a long history of working in the revenue cycle support industry. Her skills span leadership, operations start up, policies and procedures development, operations workflow, budgeting and client management.

She is passionate about the experience of our people, patients and the Healthcare clients we serve and believes that a team of diverse, talented and motivated individuals working together toward a common goal can make a difference.

Robert Sterett

VP of Information Technology

As a transformational leader Robert Sterett has leveraged his 20 years of experience to build effective service lines and exceptional teams. In his role as VP of Information Technology at Revenue Enterprises, Robert excels at taking a unique, balanced, and strategic approach to technology leadership with people first for the best possible outcome. Using his experience from engineering, project management and service line management he takes a multi-faceted approach to ensure the right people are in the correct position coupled with the best technology to meet or exceed all expectations from security to compliance and business continuity.

Robert’s leadership style lends itself to building long term relationships and has consistently been a relied upon strength in many organizations. Over Robert’s time as an IT operational and project leader, he has spent significant time in both hands-on technology facing roles and client centric management roles to bring the best solutions that strive to meet the business and client needs.

Focusing heavily on his personal development skills and opportunities, Robert continues to foster coaching and mentorship relationships everywhere in his life, and the lives around him.

Douglas Dunbar

VP of Sales & Marketing

As VP of Sales and Marketing for Revenue Enterprises, Douglas Dunbar leads with a passion for building strategic partnerships, nurturing relationships, and upholding customer service excellence. In his role, Doug focuses on marketing and brand strategy, sales team leadership, and working closely with members of the management team to best serve company goals.

Doug has over 28 years of National sales and marketing call/contact center leadership, with 10 years of service specifically at Revenue Enterprises. Currently, Doug serves as part of Wyoming HFMA Chapter leadership and has held various roles in Colorado HFMA Chapter leadership for over 9 years.

In his spare time, Doug is very family oriented. Additionally, he loves traveling, cycling, golfing, fishing, hunting, and boating.

Kris Brumley, MBA

President & COO

As President & COO of Revenue Enterprises, Kris Brumley is a collaborative partner within the executive team and a leader for operational functions across the organization. Kris productively shares vision, drives innovation, and supports those around her in a way that elevates them and fosters continuous improvement and results. She has helped create a supportive environment for clients resulting in 98% client retention and a 65% NPS score for all clients and 75% for top clients by revenue.

Kris possesses an MBA in data analytics and has twenty-five years of experience in the healthcare industry, with 19 specifically in revenue cycle. She brings a wealth of customer service experience to her role and has worn many hats at Revenue Enterprises including Director of Business Development, EBO Division Director, and VP of Client Experience Management.

In her personal life, Kris is as busy outside of work as inside. She values spending time with her family, and enjoys fishing, hiking, traveling and interior decorating and design.

Timothy (Tim) Brainerd

CEO

As CEO of Revenue Enterprises for almost 20 years, Tim Brainerd leads by example. He promotes a shared vision and stewards a culture of Integrity, Passion, and Respect. He has assembled and empowered high-performing talent and teams to support customers, facilitate strategic planning and manage the capital of the company. Under his leadership, Revenue Enterprises has doubled in size three times over the past fifteen years while maintaining a culture of caring and gratefulness.

Tim has close to four decades of revenue cycle experience, including nineteen years with RSI
Enterprises. He has been a past president of Colorado Chapter of the HFMA and a presenting speaker on the topic of Leadership. He is a fifteen-year member of Vistage International, the world’s largest CEO coaching and peer advisory organization for small and midsize business leaders.

Raised in the Midwest, Tim values humble principles like being respectful, caring, passionate, self-reliant, and most importantly grateful. His most important lesson and the lesson he hopes to pass on in all relationships is living the Golden Rule–do unto others as you would have them do unto you. He is intentional in his choices and believes in making decisions, taking action, being accountable, and loving your neighbors.

Whenever possible, Tim spends his time with his wife of nearly forty years, his adult children, and his grandchildren. His hobbies include fishing, golfing, traveling as well as game nights and sharing great food with his family.