This article is sponsored by Brightree. In this Voices interview, HME Business sits down with Noel Tauzin, Head of Revenue Cycle Management at Brightree, to discuss how HME providers are embracing AI, machine learning and other technologies. He also reveals what brought him to Brightree in 2025, and takes a look ahead at where the industry is going.
HME Business: You are very new to Brightree, having just come aboard in January. As a past provider and as a longtime professional in this field, what did you see in Brightree that attracted you here, and what have you seen from Brightree on the inside that impresses you?
Noel Tauzin: I’ve spent over two decades leading teams in clinical documentation and health care revenue cycle management, beginning in the days of typewriters and cassette tapes — literally transcribing patient records and physically attaching them to charts. I’ve seen the full arc of the industry’s evolution: from paper to electronic health records, from domestic-only labor to globally sourced teams, and from manual workflows to increasingly automated systems.
My experience also includes leading revenue cycle operations at a nationwide DME supplier, so I’ve worked firsthand with the challenges providers face — especially in navigating the complexities of billing, documentation and payer dynamics. That perspective is what initially drew me to Brightree. Even before joining, I worked closely with Brightree as a vendor partner, so I had deep familiarity with the team, the technology and the company’s broader mission.
Now on the inside, what impresses me most is Brightree’s focus on innovation. We’re not just maintaining existing systems — we’re actively investing in AI, machine learning and intelligent automation to drive better outcomes for both providers and patients. It’s rare to find an organization that balances technical excellence with a genuine commitment to improving the provider experience and patient care. That’s what makes this role such a natural fit for me.
Considering that experience, how did that shape your vision, and your approach, for driving innovation at Brightree?
Noel Tauzin: I’ve seen just how fast all of these changes have impacted the industry, from front-end speech recognition in transcription to using intelligent routing to identify the types of work that people do best, to technology’s impact on medical coding. Yet the HME world has continued to process our workflows pretty much exactly the same way we did 15 to 20 years ago.
Seeing all of that from the standpoint of both an outsourced provider and working directly with national HME providers has allowed me to build a vision. This is the time to take these experiences where we’ve seen great results and apply it to the HME world to achieve better outcomes.
For health care providers seeking to scale their operations and improve patient care, why is outsourcing such a critical strategy?
Noel Tauzin: I’d say the primary reason is related to finding people today. In a geography where you might have an HME provider, we really struggle finding people who understand the HME world, the product line, the payer requirements and that revenue cycle process, which is complex and ever-changing.
That lack of qualified labor leads to outsourcing, because an outsourced provider can utilize resources not only across the nation but also across the globe to better fit the job with the actual person.
What does that do for the HME provider? It actually allows them to continue to grow, because at the end of the day you’ve got people who understand the patients, who react well with the patients and who are out there selling in the backend doing work. If we can relieve that pressure from our HME providers and handle that backend work for them, they can take their experienced, qualified people and focus them where they can grow the business through sales or through better patient care.
What benefits do you see in integrating modern technology – such as automated documentation – into revenue cycle management?
Noel Tauzin: It’s really the foundation, and we have to do it now. It’s not a matter of “should we” or “could we.” We have to.
For example, utilizing AI: intelligent document automation that’s going to look at the document flows coming in for those orders, identify critical pieces of information, extract those pieces of information and apply them to the actual order without human intervention — that’s critical for us to continue to see future advances. Without those discrete data fields being populated in the EHR, we really can’t leverage other parts of technology, machine learning and AI to improve the process.
What does that improvement mean for that provider? It truly means better quality, a faster result, a product that’s delivered to the patient in a much faster manner. At the end of the day, they’re able to collect more off of those orders.
Brightree is known for its unique blend of cutting edge technology and seasoned industry expertise. How do you ensure that this synergy drives superior outcomes for providers, and what role does this integrated approach play in overcoming industry challenges?
Noel Tauzin: I’ve spent a lot of time not only working with our internal employees with cross-functional departments, such as product development and product management, but also out in the market attending conferences like Medtrade, the Great Lakes Annual Conference & Exhibition, and several others. The buzz is around AI, machine learning and the general use of technology. And I think it’s difficult for a lot of providers to understand how that will impact them.
So the advantage to Brightree is that we provide that service and that technology, closing the feedback loop from those who are actually processing those invoices and those orders back to our development team. In other words, we make sure that we are meeting not only the needs of the patients but also the needs of the providers.
From your daily interactions with health care providers, what are the most pressing challenges that you observe in revenue cycle management, and how is Brightree positioned to address these issues and help providers navigate today’s complex health care environment?
Noel Tauzin: We talked a little bit about the labor challenges before, but we haven’t spent a lot of time talking about the payer challenges and navigating that space. When you look at the challenges of everchanging payer requirements, and on top of that the process flow that our payers require today, being able to manage that is probably one of the biggest challenges outside of the need for labor.
Being able to identify those changes at the payer level that are not only impacting the providers but also the patients and being able to utilize technology to help achieve a better result is definitely a goal for us. What I’m hearing when I’m talking to others in the marketplace is that they want to utilize AI and other technology, but it doesn’t replace labor.
I think that’s where Brightree comes in. Having the knowledge of those payer requirements, the patient needs, and also being able to harness the power of the technology — those three components combined is really the right mix to a clean result.
In HME, 2025 will be the year of…?
Noel Tauzin: 2025 will be the year of being open to process change involving technology.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To learn how Brightree can help your organization, visit www.brightree.com.
The Voices Series is a sponsored content program featuring leading executives discussing trends, topics and more shaping their industry in a question-and-answer format. For more information on Voices, please contact [email protected].