By: Jena Eggert

Jena Eggert (JE): Good morning, Michele. It's so good to have you, and I'm so very excited about this October edition of RCM Connections. I'm going to hand it over to you to introduce yourself because it's always fun when I hear the titles.

Michele Bear (MB): Well, thank you, Jena. My title is a mouthful, and I keep teasing Phillip that he needs to come up with a catchy acronym, but we're not there yet. I'm Michele Baer, and I’m the Executive Director of Revenue Integrity at Baptist Health in Jacksonville.

I oversee revenue integrity, which includes the chargemaster, so a portion of my role is mid-revenue cycle operations. In addition to that, I oversee team member engagement for the revenue cycle, reporting and data analytics, education and training, quality assurance.  I feel like I'm missing something, but I hope I caught them all.  In short, a piece of operations and many support areas that support our entire revenue cycle. It's a lot of work but a lot of fun.

JE: How long have you been with Baptist?

MB: I’ll have been with Baptist for six years in January.

JE: It’s October, so let’s tell some stories! Our October issue is special. This month, we focus on giving back and raising awareness for breast cancer, and of course, you’re one of our incredible survivors.

We also celebrate fall, the festivals, and how we support each other. This naturally leads us to Thanksgiving and that spirit of giving. So, let’s talk about your journey and what it means to be a survivor.

MB: At the age of 43, I was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. I went in for a mammogram in February of that year; which was normal.  Unfortunately, I had - dense breast tissue; for those of us who have that have to be even super diligent. Ladies, do your self breast exams because those are critically important!

I had a normal mammogram in February and just happened to be lying in bed one night. It was very strange-I had this sensation in my armpit, and I was like, what is that? And then immediately felt a lump. My mother had fibrocystic breast disease, so I felt like, well, maybe it's cystic, and let’s just watch it. Don't watch it, ladies; go immediately if you find a lump.

I monitored it for a little while and finally said, okay, it's not going away, it’s getting bigger, and went in and had the biopsy and all the fun work up and was diagnosed in September 2016. It was tough!  Tough stuff to get through.  You know what they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and chemo and surgery and just the whole cancer diagnosis certainly will test your resiliency, but we're women, and we're very strong. We forge forward and find a way to get through it.

JE: How did you start your journey? Did you start with your family physician? Did you start with your GYN? We get the mammogram-where should patients go?

MB: My referral came from my GYN. The results went back to her, and then we worked through the referral process with her. Today, many of us, use our family physicians, especially if you're not within the childbearing years anymore and don't perhaps need the OB services.  Typically, care comes from whomever referred you for your mammogram because that's the doctor who will get the results and drive the referral process from there. For me, it was my GYN at the time.

JE: You're a survivor. Let's talk a bit about the commercial we showed on LinkedIn. I just thought it was beautiful. How did that come about? I just love it.

MB: I am a girly girl. I love all things makeup, and I love pink. I happened to be on Twitter at the time, and Ulta Beauty posted that they were looking for breast cancer survivors to be featured in their breast cancer awareness campaign, which they do every year. This year, in particular, they were looking for ladies in different stages of their survivorship or who were even in active treatment. I replied to the post, and they called me almost right away. I did a video interview before online video interviews were made popular due to COVID.

It was a little awkward and ultimately, they chose me and flew me to Chicago for three or four days of complete and total pampering. It was a very interesting experience if you've never been through something like that, I certainly hadn't.

They took very good care of us, and it was a lot of fun. It was intimidating, and I definitely had to step outside of my comfort zone and be in front of the camera instead of behind it. It was a lot of fun, and I'm super happy that I had that experience.

JE: Well, thank you for sharing that and for sending us the video! Sometimes, we don't always put ourselves first. Should I send that, or should I not? Thank you for sharing that with us.

MB: Sure! I also met Darius Rucker during my cancer journey. That too, was also a lot of fun. I spent a day with him, tailgating at the University of South Carolina. We're both big Gamecock fans. Go Gamecocks. Fortunately, there were a couple of really fun things to come out of a really ugly experience, but you have to look for the positive, and those were certainly some of the positives because it's a valley when you're going through it.

JE:  We have a breast cancer survivor in our family as well. It’s a valley, but we have excellent healthcare, great physicians, incredible technology, and meds.  

Let's go to the happy regarding always celebrating. You mentioned one of your roles there, and let's talk a little bit about the fall festival and your role in empowering your employees and celebrating them, not only your employees but also your families.

MB: We're very, very, very fortunate at Baptist to have a leader, Philip Boyce who is our senior vice president and our chief revenue officer. And he has a passion for people. If you've ever had a conversation with Philip, you feel that, and it's very genuine.

We're very fortunate to have Philip's championing of having an intentional department around engagement efforts, even if it's just one dedicated FTE, plus the resource my assistant and I provide. Not just Philip, but our CFO, Keith Tickell and ultimately the support of our entire organization.  We have a very intentional focus on team member engagement at Baptist.  We're in a very competitive age, especially in the revenue cycle with different types of companies such as Chick-fil-A and Target competing for the same talent pool from a dollar perspective.

We try to be very intentional about how we engage our team members because it's really important to recruit and retain the right people. You go through a lot to train and onboard them, and we want them to stay, feel welcome, and feel very much a part of our organization. I'm very biased. I will say that's my disclaimer. And I think we do a better job than most, but for us, it really starts at the top!  Philip and I have been working on this for a while and we have seen some very positive outcomes as a result.

When we first discussed it, I wasn't quite sure. I was like, yeah, it sounds great, but I'm not sure how we will do this? My next point to him was that we must have funds. If you're going to give me the funds, I'm going to turn it around and make it beneficial for the revenue cycle.

We do a lot for our team members. This year, we piggybacked off the Olympics and had our own revenue cycle Olympics, with team members who work remotely and don't come in often. We had our own version of field day-gave out awards, and had a podium at our monthly mingle. But once a year in the fall, we do a fall festival.

This was our second year of hosting a fall festival. It’s an opportunity for our team members to bring their families.? We don't often get to do that. We do departmentally, but when you look at the entire landscape of the revenue cycle, we don't get to do much where we can bring our families, and our families are our most important people-. Having that opportunity for us to provide an avenue or an outlet for our employees to come and meet other families and just have something for them to do that's a fun day that doesn't cost them anything, just their time.

The fall festival has become its own kind of thing. It has grown. It was bigger this year than it was last year. And it's just a lot of fun with a lot of positive feedback.

The only challenge that we have is the weather. Is it going to rain? Is it windy? Or is it going to be really hot? Because, you know, it's a typical fall day in Florida. So, that's our biggest challenge, but it is a great opportunity just to celebrate the season and each other.

For us, our fiscal year starts on October 1. So, we tie it in with celebrating our accomplishments from the prior fiscal year and get us all started on the right foot for the new fiscal year. So that's what we do.

JE: How many folks do you have in revenue cycle?

MB: We have around 1,250, give or take.

JE: I know the city of Jacksonville; once our sports teams and all of those folks get wind of it, I'm sure that there will be a lot of involvement. Baptist does such great work in Jacksonville.

Michele, thank you so much for your time.  I'm excited to showcase your journey and the fall festival. We have many pictures for our readers, including Olympic and fall photos, along with your story. We will include your LinkedIn account in the magazine should any of our readers want to connect with you regarding their breast cancer journeys.  There are always questions. I know that you're a huge advocate, and we're all doing this together.

We're all a big RCM CommUnity.

MB: That's right, lift each other up!

JE: That's it-every single day.

MB:  Celebrate our successes. We got to do that too. Exactly.