Baptist Health Corbin laying off 15 medical coding workers

Fifteen medical coding employees at Baptist Health Corbin are among 37 Baptist Health employees being laid off by the network of eight hospitals across Kentucky and southern Indiana.

The positions are being eliminated as the hospital has reached an agreement with AGS Health, who will take over a portion of the medical coding.

AGS Health, Inc. is an award-winning revenue cycle management company headquartered in Newark, N.J., that provides medical coding and other services to health systems, physician groups and other healthcare providers.

AGS is currently providing coding services to Baptist Health for Primary Care, Physical Therapy (PT), Ancillary, Emergency and Endoscopy Surgery. No other coding areas of responsibility are affected.

This co-sourcing arrangement – using both internal and AGS resources for medical coding – will help reduce costs and improve turnaround time while continuing to provide quality service. The increased complexity of hospital billing and economic pressures have made outsourcing for revenue cycle capabilities a common practice in the healthcare industry. A recent survey found that half of healthcare organizations have others perform at least some of those functions and up to 72 percent plan to do so by 2020.

Co-sourcing our coding capabilities allows Baptist Health to adjust quickly to patient volumes and improves turn-around times – all while maintaining the quality and accuracy of billing processes. While co-sourcing means Baptist Health will retain the majority of the coding employees, 37 home-based positions across the system have been affected.

Hospital officials said employees affected by the layoff would receive severance pay, have the opportunity to seek other positions within the hospital network, and/or assistance with job search resources.

“It is too early to tell how many people may ultimately be affected as we hope that many will apply for other spots within Baptist Health,” said Kit Fullenlove Barry, a Public Relations Manager for Baptist Health.

“The increased complexity of hospital billing and economic pressures have made outsourcing for revenue cycle capabilities a common practice in the healthcare industry,” hospital officials added in a statement. “A recent survey found that half of healthcare organizations have others perform at least some of those functions and up to 72 percent plan to do so by 2020.”