Slack didn’t buy Super Bowl ads. He did not cover airports with billboards. But it has nonetheless become the default operating system for modern work. How did they do it? Because experience was the brand. Teams adopted it, loved it and spread it. No marketing campaign could have accomplished this more quickly or more credibly. Health officials, take note.
Providers like to think they’ve built their brand in the exam room, in the skills of surgeons, or in the way nurses are at the bedside. And to be clear, this is definitely part of it. But in 2025, your brand is also built (or destroyed) at the billing desk, on the prior authorization line, and when patients open their statement.
A single confusing bill erases the goodwill of months of excellent care. A denied claim (one of 450 million estimated in a recent survey) does more than stall your revenue cycle. This harms staff morale, operational viability, patient trust, and ultimately your reputation.
In other words: your back office is your brand.
The cost of interrupted processes
A poor billing experience goes beyond the impact on patients. Each error sets off a chain reaction of calls, edits and document searches that undermine the morale and productivity of medical provider teams. Burnout spreads like a virus. And exhausted employees become destructive brand ambassadors. Data from MGMA and the American Journal of Managed Care clearly shows the cycle: Overworked staff leads to higher turnover, which leads to more errors, which then erodes brand trust.
What starts as an HR problem turns into a growth problem. The talent brand, the patient brand, and the operations brand are all the same thing. You can’t get out of a claims process broken by commercialization.
The brand lives in the admin layer
Functions historically considered burdensome cost centers, such as scheduling, insurance verification, prior authorization and billing, now determine how efficiently care is delivered and how much trust patients place in you. Smooth processes enhance brand value. Clunky processes drive churn.
It’s not something sweet. This is the math behind growth. Rejections burn money. Burnout leads to turnover. Frustrated teams and delays in verifying benefits slow down care delivery. Conversely, intuitive technology, seamless billing processes and automated controls free up staff, reduce errors and allow employees to focus on more strategic and rewarding work.
From operational thinking to growth engine
Forward-thinking health systems view the back office as a strategic growth engine. Here is the playbook to achieve this transformation for your organization:
- Fix broken back-office processes – Start with root causes like disjointed data, inconsistent payer rules, and manual transfers that create avoidable rework. Map the lifecycle of a claim, from planning to payment. Close gaps with standardized workflows and shared data definitions. The goal is prevention (own input and clear ownership) so that problems never snowball.
- Empower internal teams by eliminating tedious manual workloads – Equip revenue cycle staff with real-time eligibility, customizable rules, automated accuracy checks, and work queues that prioritize higher-impact tasks. Automate repetitive steps (status checks, basic fixes) so experts can focus on complex resolution and vendor support. When teams have visibility and action, accuracy increases, issues can be quickly resolved, and cycle time decreases.
- Evangelize results (i.e. reduced rejections, improved efficiency, reduced costs with higher satisfaction) – Publish simple dashboards that highlight operational gains with finance, clinical and leadership teams. Share playbooks across service lines to scale what works. Recognize teams for measurable improvements. Internal storytelling turns efficiency into culture, and a strong culture will create sustainable growth.
The way you do something is the way you do everything. Set high standards for back-office operations to meet your organization’s expectations for quality care and you will transform business results, including collection rates, retention, margins and Net Promoter Score. As automation and AI-powered back-end tools evolve, providers see more value in using them to amplify the expertise of their teams. Routine work becomes lighter and the system moves faster.
In practice, this could mean redesigning billing statements in plain language, investing in proactive eligibility checks and an RCM automation platform so denials never happen, and giving staff real-time tools to improve visibility and resolve billing questions at the point of care. These operational advancements also serve as growth strategies that directly impact brand equity.
The downstream impact
When the back office performs well, the entire organization feels the impact. Administrators spend less time reworking and providers experience fewer interruptions. These capacity gains allow medical groups to reinvest time and money in clinical programs, access and experience, thereby multiplying the return on operational improvement without requiring direct patient engagement. In short, make your administrative teams faster and more accurate so your organization can dedicate more resources to care.
The new definition of the brand in the field of health
The brand can no longer be built only in the exam room. It should be built through fast and accurate eligibility checks, pre-visit cost estimates, and no-fault claims. Leaders who bridge marketing and operations understand that the back office is now part of the brand’s front line. For medical organizations, operational quality equals brand perception, both among internal teams and the communities you serve. Those who embrace this new definition will find that growth follows naturally: happier staff, better business results and a reputation that markets itself.
It’s the same lesson Slack has proven in business: experience is brand. And in healthcare, that experience is defined as much by your back
Photo: Anything is possible, Getty Images
An award-winning marketing veteran, Bethany Hale is the Director of Marketing at Candid Health, an autonomous revenue cycle platform that transforms the medical billing claims process with advanced automation and AI. Prior to joining Candid, Bethany held CMO roles at large companies such as Cedar, Newfront and Trullion. She also held senior marketing and management positions at IBM and American Express. Bethany holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
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