In today’s healthcare environment, providers are being asked to do more with less, improving patient outcomes, ensuring compliance and optimizing performance while navigating staffing shortages and rising costs. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is emerging as a transformative tool to meet these demands, enabling health systems to streamline operations, reduce administrative burden and empower teams to focus on high-value work.
By automating repetitive, rules-based tasks, RPA helps organizations work more efficiently, reduce errors and drive measurable outcomes. As these capabilities grow, using RPA for health systems can serve as a steppingstone toward more advanced automation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
Discover insights from our healthcare and automation leaders.
RPA isn’t just about technology, it’s about transformation. For most organizations, success means reducing friction in workflows, improving staff productivity and creating capacity for innovation.
These are tasks that tend to be high volume, rules driven and error-prone, the perfect candidates for automation. When properly executed, these automations shorten cycle times, improve data integrity and free staff from the manual work that too often gets in the way of meaningful patient engagement.
Where should health systems start?
With so many potential use cases, choosing where to begin can be daunting. That’s why a formal automation readiness assessment is a key first step. This process helps leaders evaluate where RPA can make the greatest impact by identifying tasks that are high in volume and low in complexity, and that align with broader strategic goals.
Equally important is starting with processes that generate quick wins. For example, automating appointment reminders can reduce no-show rates and increase access. Automating eligibility checks can streamline pre-visit workflows and improve patient satisfaction. These early successes help build momentum for broader adoption.
Aligning IT and operation for long-term success
One of the most important success factors in RPA adoption is cross-functional collaboration. Too often, automation is seen solely as an IT initiative, but real impact requires operational insight.
IT leaders bring expertise in system integration, security and scalability. Operations teams understand the workflows, pain points and priorities. Together, they can design and deploy automations that are not only technically sound but operationally impactful.
Many organizations establish automation centers of excellence or governance structures to formalize this collaboration, prioritize use cases, and ensure alignment with larger organizational goals.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Even with the best intentions, RPA initiatives can struggle without a deliberate approach. Common missteps include:
Automating broken processes that should first be redesigned
Lack of ownership, leading to neglected bots and diminished ROI
Overengineering, which can stall projects before launch
Change resistance from staff who don’t understand the benefits
To overcome these challenges, organizations should start small, set clear goals, and establish regular feedback loops to refine and improve. Change management is key, not only by clarifying what automation does, but by reinforcing its value and the positive impact it can have on both staff and patient experiences.
Moving from RPA to intelligent automation
While RPA is an excellent starting point, forward-thinking organizations are already expanding into intelligent automation (IA). By integrating AI and ML, bots can move beyond repetitive tasks and begin supporting decision making, predicting outcomes and adapting to changing conditions.
Examples of intelligent automation include:
Denial Management: Machine learning algorithms can analyze denied claims to identify common reasons and suggest corrective actions, reducing the denial rate and improving reimbursement.
Predictive Analytics for Payment Delays: AI can predict which claims are likely to be delayed or denied based on historical data, allowing healthcare providers to proactively address issues and expedite payments
Revenue Integrity: AI tools can ensure that billing codes are accurate and compliant with regulations, reducing the risk of audits and penalties
These solutions drive greater efficiency, but more importantly, they unlock new ways of working by creating time and space for staff to focus on innovation, care coordination and patient relationships.
Real results and meaningful outcomes
When implemented strategically, RPA can deliver substantial improvements in operational and financial performance. Health systems have seen:
Significant reductions in data entry errors
Faster cycle times and throughput
Increased staff engagement and satisfaction
Improved accuracy and compliance
Enhanced ability to scale without proportional increases in labor
These outcomes speak to RPA’s power not just as a cost-saving tool, but as a catalyst for system wide transformation.
A journey, not a project
Automation isn’t a one-time effort but a long-term strategy. As organizations mature, they can scale their RPA and intelligent automation initiatives across departments, evolve into more complex use cases and embed automation into broader digital transformation initiatives.
The key to this evolution is maintaining a focus on measurable outcomes, aligning automation efforts with organizational goals and continuously improving solutions based on data and feedback.
Empowering a smarter workforce
Ultimately, RPA is about empowering people. By relieving staff of low-value, repetitive tasks, automation allows them to contribute at a higher level by solving problems, connecting with patients and driving innovation. It’s not about replacing people; it’s about amplifying their impact.
Start your automation journey with confidence
With a clear strategy and the right support, RPA can be implemented quickly and scaled across your organization. At Baker Tilly, we help healthcare leaders identify the highest-impact opportunities, develop scalable road maps and implement automation aligned with real-world operations and long-term goals.
Gain insights into how healthcare organizations are leveraging RPA to streamline operations, reduce administrative burden and improve patient outcomes.
