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Choosing the right ROI methodology for the revenue cycle

Participants in this HIMSS26 session will have the opportunity to apply what's learned to their organizations and leave with a draft ROI measurement plan.
By Susan Morse , Executive Editor
Hospital revenue cycle staffer at work

Photo: Cecilie Arcurs/Getty Images

This story has been updated to reflect a new speaker for this session.

David Figueredo, chief innovation officer for MedeAnalytics, will lead revenue cycle leaders through the best framework for their organizations to measure ROI, at the 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exposition

Healthcare Finance News asked for more details in this Q&A.

Q. Can you please give a brief description of what your session is about?

A. Revenue cycle leaders are under constant pressure to justify investments, whether it's automation and purpose-driven analytics, process improvement, denials prevention campaigns or other complex initiatives. Yet the term "return on investment" can mean very different things depending on the question, timeline, measurement, and understanding of how to model ROI, which is dependent on the data you have available. This session equips healthcare finance and revenue cycle professionals with a practical decision framework for choosing the right ROI measurement approach without defaulting to methods that are either too simplistic to be credible or too complex to be usable.

We'll walk through three proven methodologies across a spectrum of rigor and effort and present a larger framework to help professionals design and deliver on data driven, foundationally sound ROI models that will increase accuracy and improve overall confidence in measurable ROI. Topics include the following:

  1. Pre-/post- analysis for fast, directional insights when you need an answer quickly, and risk is low.
  2. Cohort matching to strengthen credibility when selection bias is likely.
  3. AI-powered X-learners (causal "uplift" models) to estimate who benefits most from an intervention.

Q. What can attendees learn from attending?

A. Attendees will leave with a decision checklist, practical talking points, and a repeatable way to demonstrate value and how AI can be used to improve ROI modeling by focusing resources where they drive the greatest impact. Attendees will leave with practical, immediately usable skills to strengthen and communicate ROI models for revenue cycle and healthcare finance initiatives. Specifically, they will learn how to:

  1. Choose the right ROI methodology for the situation using a clear decision framework that considers timeline, data availability, stakeholder expectations (operational versus CFO-ready) and the stakes of the investment.
  2. Apply and interpret various ROI approaches while improving the understanding of the tradeoffs between speed, rigor and credibility.
  3. Recognize and reduce common sources of common ROI errors, such as selection bias, shifting population mix and uneven adoption across sites, teams or populations.
  4. Translate analytics results into a defensible business case by identifying the key data inputs, defining success measures, and framing results in language that supports investment decisions.
  5. Use AI to improve ROI outcomes by leveraging structured ROI modeling to help identify which members or accounts are most likely to benefit from an intervention and where resources may be wasted on nonresponders.

The session includes interactive scenarios and a guided group exercise where participants will apply the framework to a real initiative from their own organizations, leaving with a draft ROI measurement plan they can take back and operationalize.

Q. How does AI figure into healthcare ROI?

A. AI enables precision targeting that can dramatically improve program ROI. Traditional methods tell you whether a program works on average, but AI-powered X-Learners predict which specific members will benefit most from an intervention. In our experience, targeting the right members can triple ROI, from 50% to 150%, using the same program resources. This is critical for expensive interventions like intensive care management ($5,000-$8,000 per member annually), where enrolling nonresponders wastes resources, while members who would benefit miss out. AI also enables retrospective analysis to identify which current participants are driving positive ROI versus which might benefit from a different intervention approach.

Q. Can you please give a brief description of how your session fits with the company mission?

A. This session directly reflects MedeAnalytics' mission to transform healthcare through actionable insights. We believe that sophisticated analytics should be accessible and practical to bring clarity with purpose, intelligence that leads to action and performance improvement that scales. A good enough analysis delivered on time beats a perfect analysis delivered too late. The framework I'm presenting has been developed through years of working with health plans and providers to measure and optimize their intervention programs.

Figueredo's session, "Mastering Healthcare ROI: From Basic Analytics to Artificial Intelligence-Powered Precision Targeting," is scheduled for Tuesday, March 10, at 10:15 a.m., in Lido 3101A at HIMSS26 in Las Vegas.

 

 

Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org