In 2025, healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) saw major advances in AI-driven automation, cloud-based partnerships, and new tools for denial prevention, patient engagement, and financial integrity. It shifted from incremental automation to AI-first strategies that blended cloud, automation, and predictive analytics to reduce denials, accelerate cash flow, and improve patient trust. We asked our experts what progress they think we will see in 2026 for RCM in healthcare. Here is what they had to say:
Jim Szyperski, CEO, Acuity Behavioral Health
LinkedIn: Jim Szyperski
Behavioral healthcare, and inpatient psychiatry specifically, suffers from a poor per diem reimbursement rate that continues to negatively impact the ability of an incredibly dedicated and talented workforce of nurses and clinical staff to properly deliver patient care. In fairness to payors, this is largely an industry self-inflicted wound as the high degree of variability in clinical operations from site to site, and the inability to quantify improvement or regression in patients, makes it difficult for payors to determine who and how higher reimbursement for the acute services provided should be reimbursed. This has to change as the current (downward) path is IMO not sustainable. The current state of inpatient psychiatry is simply not sustainable. It requires the same level of AI data-driven change that is sweeping across healthcare. The lack of acuity measurement isn’t just a clinical blind spot, it’s a systemic liability. Without the data, there is no visibility into acuity. Without acuity models, hospitals cannot manage staffing levels, predict surges in care needs to manage them, or secure appropriate reimbursement.
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