Driving Hospital Turnarounds and AI Strategy in Revenue Cycle with Sunitha Reddy

In this episode of the Becker CFO and Revenue Cycle podcast, Alan Condon interviews Sunita Reddy, Chief Revenue Officer and Vice President of Operations at Prime Healthcare, a rapidly growing health system operating 54 hospitals and 360+ outpatient facilities across 15 states. Reddy outlines the three major trends shaping healthcare revenue cycle management today: escalating financial pressure on community hospitals due to rising labor costs, stagnant Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement, and massive projected Medicaid cuts; increasing complexity and volume of claim denials driven by payer behavior; and the accelerating integration of AI and automation across the revenue cycle. She details Prime Healthcare’s unique turnaround strategy—centered on end-to-end revenue cycle integration, in-house operations, standardized workflows via Epic, clinical alignment, and data-driven decision-making—that enables rapid stabilization of financially distressed hospitals. Reddy emphasizes that AI is not a replacement for staff but a tool to reduce administrative burden, improve accuracy, and shift revenue cycle teams toward more strategic, analytical roles. She highlights early wins in predictive denial management, automated appeals support, and proactive documentation improvement, underscoring that success hinges on thoughtful integration, governance, and workforce evolution. The conversation concludes with a forward-looking view on how AI is reshaping the function from transactional to strategic, demanding new skills in data literacy, cross-functional leadership, and technology fluency.