Success is not final; failure is not fatal. During tough times what matters most is the courage to keep going. And this courage was what inspired the healthcare sector during the pandemic to keep going strong.
Milind Godbole fondly known as MG is one such inspiring CEO who managed to find inspiration during this tough time. “No matter where you find it, inspiration is often an integral part of what keeps you going when times get tough.” MG says.
As the CEO and Managing Director, Milind Godbole has been revolutionizing the norms of Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) through his organization GeBBS Healthcare Solutions.
MG believes in the honest commitment that helps get the work done all the while being empathetic towards the client’s problems. And he encourages his team to demonstrate the same passion at work. “The action that inspires me is not just telling my people how deeply they should be committed to their client experience but to demonstrate this action through their passion in every presentation, meeting, and handling client problems.” MG says.
An inspiring journey right from the beginning
From starting his career as a Deputy Manager Production and Customer Support at Meltron to currently leading GeBBS Healthcare Solutions, MG’s journey has been both challenging and inspiring. His skills and expertise have been instrumental in building his previous organization – MphasiS.
After stepping into the CEO role, MG made it a mission statement to incorporate innovation at work. His innovative strategies and decision-making power have established GeBBS as one of the fastest-growing companies in the RCM industry.
Since its inception, GeBBS has been revolutionizing the norms of RCM industry with new strategies fruitfully applied by the trained staff of the company. The organization’s prolific growth proves this success saga. – MG says, “When I joined GeBBS Healthcare Solutions in 2013, the company’s revenue was $ 17.8 mm and we were around 2300 employees. We ended our last fiscal with revenues of $ 99.4 mm with almost 9600 employees.”
With the team’s dedication and the CEO’s strong vision and guidance, GeBBS has reached new heights in Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and now are in the league of Tier 1 RCM providers.
Automation to stay market-updated
As the business grows, different problems demand different solutions. What worked a year ago might not be the best approach now. Responding to the changing market scenarios GeBBS welcomed some major changes. But as a CEO, the decision-making was tough.
“The change necessitated making calls that were important but not agreeable to all.” MG recalls.
Furthermore, along with taking tough calls, bringing the right infrastructure in picture to grow business during COVID-19 was another major challenge MG had to deal with. “We had to strategize and plan for not only winning new customers but also to build profitable relationships and maximizing growth with existing clients.”
He further adds, “We had to understand where our services are in their lifecycle to work out how to maximize overall profitability and upgrade as per the market or take the risk of making business decisions based on outdated information, which can lead to business failure.”
GeBBS has incorporated automation, innovation and transformation to cater to the current market needs with a stream of new products.
Innovation at its core
GeBBS Healthcare Solutions has more than fifteen years of hospital and healthcare provider experience with over 7000 professionals working on customizable and scalable solutions. GeBBS Healthcare Solutions was founded with the idea of lessening the burden of non-clinical functions by outsourcing, so the healthcare organizations can provide better patient care and customer service, while improving profitability.
Innovation has been at the heart of our growth at GeBBS. Under MG’s leadership numerous programs like Best Practice sharing, GeBBS Innovation Council were created. Under these forums a number of automation tools were created like iCODE suite of technology, iAR, iCAR, Machine learning and NLP and iDecision tree which had a global impact on our businesses. This in turn led to client satisfaction and expansion of GeBBS within Mumbai, Aurangabad & Manila. His thought process lead to the creation of the GeBBS Innovation Council (GIC). Its objective is to provide a platform & recognize employee whose projects have an impact on people, systems and processes in the organization, grooming the employees on their leadership skills, creating entrepreneurs and encourage on their continuous development. The members of the council undertake projects that have a business impact, commitment & client centricity. Apart from the iAR, the Seat Utilisation Tracker was launched to manage the total production seats efficiently, as a part of the administrative process at GeBBS.
MG has also been instrumental in the creation of iCRA -Computer Assisted Coding – an application for automatic detection and insertion of clinical Dx codes by scrutinizing and interpreting unstructured clinician’s notes. iCRA uses specialized linguistic algorithms and extracts the clinical elements that support the auto – assignment of codes. The NLP based iCRA platform helps us gain a competitive edge for our clients and provides substantial value to our business. The platform is built on the latest AI based technologies coupled with deep-learning-based capability with the LSTM network (a kind of Recurrent Neural Network) based OCR engine. iCRA drives potential increase in productivity due to the elimination of particular manual tasks within the coding process. It ensures consistency in the coding process while identifying missed coding opportunities.
In 2019-2020 with MG’s vision, discover, design and development approach, MG has initiated the Robotic Process Automation (RPA), LMS, KMS & eLearning systems in the organizations. The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a computer coded program that performs repetitive rules-based tasks, cross functional and cross application macros. RPA tool can log in to any applications, connect to system APIs, copy and paste data, move files to folders, read and write to database, open email attachments, scrap data from web, make calculations, extract structured data from documents and follow rules. With the implementation of RPA tool we have saved 60% FTE cost, reduced 50% in execution time, increased 100% accuracy and have achieved high proficiency level for our RCM clients.
Under MG’s vision and leadership various engagement programs like rewards & recognition, fun events, competency development programs were developed at GeBBS. MG has taken painstaking efforts in inculcating an outcome driven culture which is deep rooted at all levels in the organization. MG’s constant focus at GeBBS has been, “We train you well and we test you better and we empower you to deliver better value for our clients”. MG firmly believes in creating opportunities for our employees to learn on the job as well as through various skill development training programs. He has been instrumental in the creation of career progression programs like LEAD, LEAP (Learn, Evolve, Accomplish and Progress) &GenNex. These programs power the career growth and development of employees who maintain high performance levels, while also enthusiastically fulfilling newer responsibilities in their respective roles.
Under MG’s tutelage the Coding Skill Certification Program was created wherein employees got trained at higher skills within the domain. This has created a high number of certified professionals within the organization.
Organization set-up
As the leading national provider of Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and Health Information Management (HIM) solutions GeBBS has been fruitfully helping their healthcare partners to manage their non-clinical activities.
MG says, “Our in-depth healthcare industry expertise enables us to provide end-to-end solutions to successfully resolve our client’s billing challenges, while embracing their overall business operations.”
MG further shares the operations of GeBBS Healthcare Solutions which include:
- Flat and nimble organization structure.
- Focused attention at all levels from CEO to associate.
- Flex-source Delivery Model.
- Technology-enabled Platform Company.
- Full lifecycle solution offerings.
- Client-focused workforce.
- Proactive investment in customer relationships.
- Right mix of domain and technical expertise.
- Completely geared to cater to the client’s growth.
Over the years, GeBBS has improvised their financial performance, organizational structure, processes, people development, customer segment, and products coupled with innovation.
GeBBS has taken an impactful approach of implementing business solution with the mission of partnering with clients to help them achieve strategic business objectives. And the team shows commendable passion, excellence, and speed of execution for every project.
With trust, transparency, integrity, commitment, learning and collaboration as the core GeBBS is marching forward with the vision of becoming the market leader in providing end-to-end innovative healthcare business solutions by combining technology and service excellence in partnership with their clients.
The 3R Mechanism
COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organizations to redesign their approach and operations to adjust to the ongoing situations. Talking about how GeBBS dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, MG says, “The pandemic impacted our volumes, progress, and revenue. Our volumes reduced from 100% to 48% within 2 months. Our revenue went down 50% within 2 months.”
But these challenges only encouraged MG and his leadership team to strive harder to achieve concrete solutions. “We came up with the 3R mechanism – Respond, Recover, and Renew – to fight with the impact of COVID-19 on our business.”
Along with the plummeting revenue, the safety and security of employees was a big concern for GeBBS. The management team at GeBBS accepted this challenge and crafted a robust Business Continuity Management Plan to successfully implement Work-from-home infrastructure, Cyber Security, Employee Engagement, and Operational Business Communication.
Ever since the lockdown was lifted and as per government rules only 20% of the employees gradually resumed work, GeBBS has been regularly sanitizing and disinfecting the office premises and transport facilities. Furthermore, the management team has been strict with following the norms of social distancing, wearing face mask, and placing foot-operated sanitizers inside the office premises. Regular temperature checks are conducted, and verification is completed through the Arogya Setu application at the entrance.
Expertise – The key to exponential growth
Experience is the key aspect of gaining knowledge and expertise. Agreeing to this MG says, “With over 30 years of work experience, I am well-aware of the ever-changing landscape of the healthcare industry.” MG has constructively used his knowledge and expertise to help GeBBS grow exponentially leading to CAGR of 38.6%, which is unheard of in the Healthcare industry.
GeBBS has grown to a current workforce compromising more than 9600 dedicated employees. This achievement shows the contribution of GeBBS in delivering real solutions to conquer the long-standing problems in the Healthcare industry.
And the commitment and contribution on MG’s part as the CEO is commendable. “In these years, I have devoted significant efforts to define our long- and short-term goals and objectives, and to design strategies that help achieve these goals.” MG elaborates.
Essence of entrepreneurship for aspirants
Having served as the business insider for over decades and now being an inspiring CEO, MG was ecstatic to share wise words and guide the aspiring entrepreneurs in the right direction.
“Always be informed and ahead of the curve. Anticipate business changes and work in a proactive way, rather than, on a reactive one,” he says.
Challenge others set the bar high and lift everyone around you. That’s the motto MG has been following and advices aspirants to do the same.
From his years of experience MG also shares word of caution, “It is easy to try and mirror other leaders you see than uncovering your own leadership style,” he says, “But if you want to stand out, you first have to introspect yourself. Find out what you are good at. Find out what is unique to you and then be authentic.”
MG also shares a pro tip on being a wise decision-maker. He says, “As a leader, you set the standard for the company and the team. While many decisions will be difficult, even in tough situations, you can always choose to do the right thing and take the right path.”
