Why AI and RPA Together Maximize Denial Appeal Automation with Christina Slemp | Podcast Shorts from ArceeHQ

In this clip

Christina Slemp describes how UNC Health is combining AI automation and RPA at the back end of denials management: AI generates the appeal letter, and RPA automatically uploads it to the payer. The gap she sees most often in other organizations is deploying AI for appeal generation without wiring RPA into the submission step, leaving the last mile to manual effort. Her concrete example is E&M downgrade denials and underpayments: with both tools integrated, UNC Health can now appeal cases automatically that would have been left on the table one or two years ago because the volume was too high to handle manually.

Key Takeaway

AI-generated denial appeals deliver maximum value when RPA handles the submission, not when each tool is deployed separately. Integrating AI and RPA into a single end-to-end workflow expands the universe of appeals an organization can pursue and eliminates the manual bottleneck that leaves recoverable revenue on the table.

“That’s really where you’re going to get your maximum benefit: when you have the AI and the RPA together. That is best practice for us.”
Christina Slemp, System Vice President of Revenue Cycle Financial Services, UNC Health

Agentic AIClaims Denial Management

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Christina Slemp

Season 2 · Episode 7 · 44 min

Rethinking Denials Management: AI-Driven Prediction, Sprint-Based Root Cause Resolution, and Trust as the Foundation of Revenue Cycle Change

Christina Slemp · System Vice President of Revenue Cycle Financial Services, UNC Health

Christina Slemp, System Vice President of Revenue Cycle Financial Services at UNC Health, brings a cross-systems perspective on claims denial management shaped by more than 25 years of leading revenue cycle operations across hospital systems, health plans, and payer contracting. She describes the multi-dimensional framework her teams use to approach denials, from six-week microtargeted sprint cycles with structured root cause analysis and cross-functional executive committee oversight, to the AI and RPA combination she considers best practice for automating appeals at scale. The conversation covers the organizational restructuring she guided at UNC Health, which consolidated professional and hospital billing under an enterprise AI and automation strategy, her view that predictive AI for anticipating payer behavior represents the next step beyond reactive denial management, and the emerging use of AI to analyze payer policy changes and quantify their financial impact before organizations fall behind. Christina closes with her perspective on the leadership behaviors that drive lasting change in revenue cycle, including why data alone does not move people and why trust is the only sustainable currency for change management.

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The themes our guests cover are the same ones our executive guides and ROI calculators are built around. If this clip resonated, here’s where to take it next.

Claims Denial Management, powered by agentic AI

How ArceeHQ catches denials before they happen, resolves them automatically, and gives your reviewers only the cases that need a human.

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Executive Guide

Reducing claim denials with agentic AI

A practical framework for revenue cycle leaders. Covers the operating model shift, what to measure, and where automation actually pays.

Claims denial ROI calculator

Model the revenue impact of a first-pass rate improvement at your health system. Plug in your denial volume and payer mix.

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