Jeff Francis, Methodist's VP and CFO, opens up about financial benefits of AI in health care

Health systems are eager to adopt generative artificial intelligence solutions for revenue cycle management, seeing the promise of the technology to improve coding and capture more revenue.

Eighty percent of health systems say they’re exploring, piloting or implementing gen AI tools for RCM in 2025, a 38% jump in less than two years, according to a new survey by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and AKASA, a health tech company that provides gen AI solutions for hospital RCM. In 2023, 58% of health systems were merely considering gen AI for the revenue cycle.

About 40% of health systems are ahead of the game, either piloting or implementing gen AI tools in their operations. Another 39% are exploring their options, the latest survey found.

Commissioned by AKASA, the survey fielded responses from 519 chief financial officers and revenue cycle leaders at hospitals and health systems across the U.S. through the HFMA Pulse Survey program in April 2025. AKASA provided Fierce Healthcare with a first look at the survey results.

As health systems are navigating a challenging financial environment, the survey results match the general sentiment from healthcare finance leaders that AI could be a crucial tool to help improve RCM operations, said Jeff Francis, chief financial officer of Methodist Health System in Omaha, Nebraska.

"I was at a conference last month, and the moderator noted that two years ago, at that same conference, the AI panels were about how scary it was going to be, and this year, it was the excitement and the opportunities around it. It really has changed in two years; I'm definitely seeing it on the revenue cycle side," Francis told Fierce Healthcare.

Fierce Healthcare: Adoption of AI for hospital RCM surges, but cost, operational constraints slow progress