HBMA Innovation Conference

Hilton Park Plaza Hotel
Boston, MA

March 9th-11th, 2026

Early Bird Registration Until January 9th,2026
Member Registration: $799
Non Member Registration: $1,049

Regular Registration January 10th-March 4th, 2026
Member Registration: $899
Non Member Registration: $1,149

Onsite Registration March 9th-11th, 2026
Member Registration: $1099
Non Member Registration: $1,349
There is no guest registration available, and you must have an attendee or exhibitor badge to access any education or networking event.

HBMA's Room Block is Available for $229 a Night.

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March 9th

2:00pm-7:00pm - Registration

5:00pm-7:00pm - Opening Reception

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March 10th

7:30am-8:30am - Breakfast

7:30am-5:00pm - Registration

8:30am-9:30am - Moving Beyond Prevention: Rapid Recovery Strategies for Cyber Resilience in Healthcare Presented by Mike Green

In 2024, a single cyberattack brought billions in healthcare claims to a standstill and severely disrupted patient care across the country, revealing critical weaknesses in the industry's digital infrastructure. This session introduces a recovery framework engineered to restore healthcare operations in under fi ve days following a catastrophic event like a ransomware attack. Built with input from cybersecurity experts who serve critical infrastructure sectors such as finance and federal agencies, the approach includes secure air-gapped environments, certified third-party protocols, and robust system backups to maintain operational, clinical, and financial continuity. Attendees will gain practical strategies to shift from reactive to proactive recovery planning, embed resilience into business continuity efforts, and scale incident response processes across their organizations.Designed for providers, payers, and health IT leaders, this session delivers real-world insights and tested tools to help healthcare organizations prepare for and recover from future cyber threats.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Describe why cybersecurity can no longer be a secondary priority for healthcare
• Identify the key considerations in assessing if your organization is ready to maximize business continuity thru a cyberattack
• Bring recommendations back to their larger organization about how to action this guidance

9:30am-10:30am - Vendor Showcase

10:30am-11:00am - Exhibit Hall

11:00am-12:00pm - Scaling Smarter: How One Radiology Group Grew 200% Without Breaking Their Billing Backbone Presented by Kurtis Hertzler

What happens when a radiology practice experiences 200% operational growth in just two years? For one group, rapid expansion brought immense pressure to maintain billing performance, ensure data integrity, and uphold patient satisfaction, without a proportional increase in staffing. In this powerful case study session, learn how the group reimagined their revenue cycle management operations through AI powered automation tools and centralized processes.

Discover how they built a credentialed, centralized database, implemented real-time charge flow, and standardized ingestion interfaces across all sites. You'll hear how they leveraged AI technology to manage critical functions like claim preparation, denial prediction, and remittance downloads, enabling sustainable growth without sacrificing operational excellence.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Participants will be able to implement a system that produces meaningful business operations analytics, leading to action-oriented next steps in automating processes.
• Participants will be able to build a plan for claims processing workflow improvements through AI-powered automation tools.
• Participants will be able to hone best practices for automating their RCM workflows, saving their staff time to focus on analytical tasks.

12:00pm-1:00pm - Lunch

1:00pm-2:00pm - How to Turn Technology into New Revenue for Your RCM Business Presented by Sasha King

In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, billing companies are uniquely positioned to expand beyond traditional RCM services by leveraging new technologies to off er high-value add-on services. This session will explore how modern solutions — such as lock box and mail room automation, IDR and No Surprises Act compliance tools, accounting integrations, and credentialing/enrollment platforms — can transform billing companies into comprehensive financial and operational partners. By broadening their offerings, billing firms can increase revenue per client, improve retention, and stand out. We’ll discuss real-world examples and implementation strategies. Attendees will leave with a framework to assess and launch new services that deepen client relationships and create durable competitive advantages.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Identify new technology-enabled services that can be added to a billing company’s offering to drive new revenue streams.
• Evaluate the operational and financial impact of introducing services like lock box processing,IDR management, accounting support, and credentialing.
• Develop a framework for prioritizing, pricing, and positioning new service lines to increase client retention and differentiate from competitors.

2:00pm-3:00pm - Exhibit Hall

3:00pm-4:00pm - From Denials to Dollars: Unlocking Revenue through Real-Time Documentation Intelligence Presented by Arne Michalson

Hospitals and revenue cycle management companies lose millions each year due to incomplete documentation, even when clinical care quality is high. Because physicians naturally prioritize immediate patient needs, comorbidities and qualifiers that establish medical necessity, case mix accuracy, and defensible billing are often left undocumented. These challenges persist not because physicians lack skill, but because no single clinician can reliably capture every detail in real time without support. These gaps create a cascade of denials, revenue leakage, and costly coder rework that directly undermines revenue cycle performance.

This session will demonstrate how real-time documentation intelligence, technology that acts as a second set of eyes at the point of care, identifies and closes documentation gaps. By proactively flagging diagnoses that meet payer criteria and embedding audit-ready documentation with defensible evidence, organizations can submit cleaner claims the first time. The result is fewer denials, faster reimbursement, stronger compliance, and reduced administrative burden for physicians. Real-world hospital medicine examples will illustrate how even a 1% improvement in Case Mix Index (CMI), a key driver of reimbursement rates, can translate into seven-figure reimbursement gains in hospital medicine, and eight-figure impact at the enterprise level.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Identify the documentation gaps that drive denials and revenue leakage.
• Explain how prospective, point-of-care documentation improves medical necessity defensibility and claim quality.
• Apply strategies RCM leaders can use to align physicians, coders, and technology to convert documentation burden into measurable revenue gains.

4:00pm-5:00pm - Case Study: Uncovering Denial Trends Using Agentic AI Presented by Sourabh Agrawal & Jonathan Gerber

Many payers still send only paper explanations of benefits (EOBs), locking valuable payment and denial insights in static formats. In this session, we’ll demonstrate how an agentic AI“employee” converts these paper EOBs into structured data, verifies line-by-line payment status, posts results back into the HIS, and streams the extracted fields into an analytics layer that surfaces denial trends. By mapping plan-specific denial codes, contract discrepancies, and recurring documentation gaps, the agent helps identify root causes of revenue leakage—while also automating manual posting and driving significant labor savings. Attendees will leave with a step-by-step playbook for deploying goal-oriented AI agents to convert paper remittances into real-time dashboards, reduce denials, and improve A/R velocity.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Leverage Agentic AI to identify root cause behind loss of revenue and get key insights on what systematic errors are driving the most denials.
• Leverage Agentic AI to analyze paper-based EOBs, the (technical) challenges to expect and a playbook to resolve them.
• Leverage Agentic AI to automate the payment posting and denial assignment process to reduce expensive FTE workforce

5:00pm-6:30pm - Reception

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March 11th

7:30am-8:30am - Breakfast

7:30am-12:00pm - Registration

8:30am-9:30am - How to Find Best in Breed AI Vendors to Augment the Revenue Cycle Presented by Sumit Mahendru

AI is rapidly transforming revenue cycle management, offering new ways to improve efficiency, accuracy, and financial outcomes. This session will walk through where to start when evaluating AI vendors, how to assess their capabilities, and how to make informed buy-versus-build decisions. I’ll share candid experiences from my own journey—what has worked, what hasn’t, and the lessons learned in the process. Attendees will also hear a case study that highlights ROI considerations, negotiation strategies, and different approaches. The goal is to provide both practical guidance and peer insights to help participants navigate vendor selection with confidence.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Understand where to start with AI vendors
• See a peer's assessment and buying practices with technology vendors
• Learn from various technologies in the revenue cycle

9:30am-10:30am - Vendor Showcase

10:30am-11:30am - Exhibit Hall

11:30am-12:30pm - Future-Proofing Your Organization with Smart AI Governance Presented by Landon Tooke

AI governance is no longer theoretical. Regulators, standards bodies, and industry alliances are regularly publishing frameworks designed to guide risk management and responsible AI deployment. This session provides an executive deep-dive into leading frameworks and off ers a pragmatic method for building or upgrading an AI governance platform. Attendees will learn how to tailor these high-level frameworks for sector-specific compliance, audit readiness, and operational resilience. The session will feature practical tools for integrating AI governance into existing compliance programs and measuring program maturity.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Identify widely accepted AI governance frameworks shaping responsible AI adoption and risk management.
• Tailor high-level AI governance frameworks to meet sector-specific compliance, audit, and operational requirements.
• Integrate practical AI governance tools into existing compliance programs for enhanced oversight and maturity measurement.
• Promote organizational readiness by applying governance strategies that support compliance, resilience, and continuous improvement in AI initiatives.

12:30pm-1:30pm - Lunch

1:30pm-2:30pm - BillCo Invoicing Made Easy: Automating for Success Presented by John Gwin & Vinod Sankaran

For RCM companies (“BillCos”), invoicing clients can feel like building IKEA furniture without the instructions: multiple systems, competing data sources, and legacy workarounds that don’t quite fit together.

This session tackles the messy reality of automating client invoicing—how to wrangle your EMR, PM, and billing platforms into submission, consolidate fractured data, present it clearly to clients, and ultimately get paid faster.

With real-world case studies from billing company leaders, we’ll explore 3-5 battle-tested approaches for streamlining invoicing: from scrappy manual reports to fully automated pipelines with card-on-file and recurring ACH. Whether you're billing by FTE, % collections, or time & materials, you’ll leave with practical tools to balance automation with control—and avoid invoicing-induced migraines.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Map Your Data Seamlessly – Move from PM system → analytics → invoices without manual work, and ensure accuracy.
• Format for Pricing & Payments – Create outputs that align with your pricing model, make it easy for clients to pay, and cut down on chasing unpaid invoices.
• Automate End-to-End – Streamline reporting, invoice generation, tracking, reminders, and payment collection.
• Audit & Stay Compliant – Use automation wisely, keep controls in place, and be ready for client audits.

2:30pm-2:45pm - Break

2:45pm-3:45pm - The Road to ROI: Where is AI Delivering Revenue Cycle Results? Presented by Judd Chamberlain

AI can be a game-changer in healthcare RCM — but only if it delivers results.

In a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Waystar, 300+industry leaders were surveyed about the current state of AI adoption in healthcare payments.

Join this session to get a full breakdown of the research, including:

• How and where AI is producing results
• Why growing trust in AI is accelerating adoption
• Where leaders are planning to expand AI investments next
   

We’ll also drill down on critical metrics from the study. For example, we’ll reveal exactly where RCM teams are seeing gains with AI — starting with average increases of:

• 18% in payment accuracy
• 27% in denial prevention
• 36% in workforce efficiency

Don’t miss this opportunity to uncover why 82% of healthcare leaders now consider AIintegral to their RCM operations.

Course participants will be able to:

• Understand how and where AI is producing results
• Learn why growing trust in AI is accelerating adoption
• Know where leaders are planning to expand AI investments next

3:45pm-5:00pm - AI Voice in the Revenue Cycle: Lessons from the Front lines - A Real-World Case Study Presented by Vinod Sankaran

In this case study session, we will explore how RCM companies integrate AI voice solutions— using different AI Voice vendors —into their revenue cycle operations, with a primary focus on Accounts Receivable (AR) follow-up and Verification of Benefits (VOB).

Designed for RCM company owners and senior executives, this session will explore how these technologies were deployed to solve staffing challenges, improve consistency, and reduce operational overhead. We'll share what worked, what didn't, and the critical lessons we learned around integration, escalation logic, and payer engagement. 

Attendees will gain real-world insight into the economics of AI voice—from cost vs. FTE tradeoffs to measuring ROI and maintaining quality outcomes. If you’re evaluating AI tools to scale your AR processes without scaling your headcount, this session will provide clarity and direction.

By deploying AI-driven IVR and outbound calling tools, we streamlined repetitive workflows while reducing dependency on manual staff. The transition has yielded benefits such as consistent agent behavior, reduced training needs, and insulation from common HR challenges like attrition and employee burnout.

However, we will also highlight the operational limitations and failure modes encountered, such as context errors, payer-specific variability, push back from certain clients and payors and fallback workflows.

This honest discussion will equip participants with insights into where AI voice is most effective, how to scale its use responsibly, and what human oversight remains essential for success.

Course Participants will be able to:

• Identify specific use cases where AI voice tools (IVR and outbound calling) can effectively improve AR follow-up and benefit verification.
• Evaluate the strategic value and ROI of AI voice platforms in replacing or augmenting traditional AR and VOB workflows.
• Identify operational challenges, failure patterns, and hybrid solutions that maximize the effectiveness of AI voice tools.
• Understand the practical limitations and failure points of current AI voice technologies in RCM operations.
• Develop a framework for integrating AI into core RCM operations while preserving accountability, compliance, and payer relationships.
• Learn how to develop a hybrid strategy that combines AI automation with human expertise to drive measurable outcomes in revenue cycle performance.

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Disclosures:

Health & Safety 
HBMA is committed to your health and safety. COVID-19 protocols will be implemented and followed based on federal and state requirements. If any attendee is exhibiting symptoms, they will be asked to leave the conference area. 

Photography
During the HBMA Annual Conference, HBMA and/or its designated representatives may take photographs or video recordings of conference attendees, and HBMA may use these materials for its editorial or marketing purposes. Conference attendees acknowledge that their image, likeness or voice may appear in these materials. By attending the HBMA Annual Conference, attendees’ consent to HBMA’s use of their image, likeness or voice for HBMA’s editorial or marketing purposes in connection with any materials in which attendees appear. 

Terms of Payment & Cancelation
Mailed registrations must be accompanied by check made payable to HBMA in the full registration amount. HBMA will provide for a full refund of registration fees, less an administrative processing fee of $150, for any cancelations received in writing more than thirty (30) days prior to the event. No refund for cancelation will be made for requests after this time.

Changes in Registration
Registrations that require changes, such as attendee substitutions, will incur a $50 fee per change. Please contact the national office at info@hbma.org for any updates to registration.

Terms are subject to change at any time without notice.