The ROI of Smart Training: 25% Reduction in Denials

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Episode: The ROI of Smart Training: 25% Reduction in Denials
Date: January 13, 2026
Guests:

• Nicole Brady, Training Manager, Access Community Health Network (Access)
• Allison Holtman, Epic Ambulatory Clinical Principal Trainer, Access
  Host: Reece, Healthcare Solutions Director, uPerform

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how Access Community Health Network—a large, federally qualified health center in the Chicago area—dramatically improved efficiency, reduced denials, and saved staff time through strategic, user-centered training initiatives. Nicole Brady and Allison Holtman share tangible results from implementing electronic prior authorization and innovative training, emphasizing how a four-person training team scaled change across 35 health centers. They dive into the methods, mindsets, and tools that drove a 15–25% reduction in denials, 30% fewer help desk requests, and over 130 hours saved monthly—all while enhancing both staff confidence and patient experience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tangible Impact of Training Transformation

• Results at a Glance (02:00):

  • 15–25% drop in denials for prior authorizations
  • 30% reduction in help desk requests
  • Over 130 hours saved every month for clinicians
  • 99% of prior authorizations now processed electronically

• Quote:

  “Since moving to that electronic prior authorization in 2024, ... we’re saving more than 130 hours every single month, which allows our providers to really get back to those patients and provide excellent patient care.”
  — Nicole Brady (02:00)

• Patient & Provider Benefits (02:35):

  • Faster authorizations mean reduced delays, less pharmacy frustration, and quicker access to care—critical for Access’ patient population.

2. Culture of Collaboration & Early Involvement

• How Change Succeeded (03:15–04:53):

  • Clinical informatics strategic group enables trainers, analysts, and operational staff to collaborate early
  • Provider “champions” test workflows and provide feedback before rollout
  • Training simulations walk staff through complete prior authorization processes

• Allison’s Key Takeaways:

  1. Collaborate early
  2. Encourage continuous feedback
  3. Always design with the user—and the “why”—in mind

• Quote:

  “Part of that was we built a hands-on simulation that walks staff through the entire process... so the provider could really see the different workflows and get that back and forth sense of what it would be like at Go Live.”
  — Allison Holtman (04:03)

3. Scaling Training with a Small Team

• Team Efficiency Secrets (05:29–07:50):

  • Early involvement in workflow and decision-making
  • Reusing and centralizing training materials
  • Virtual training formats leveraged via uPerform—crucial for reaching 35 centers
  • Embedding tip sheets and guides directly in Epic for point-of-care access
  • Consistent templates and centralized resources reduce confusion and save time

• Quote:

  “When you’re a team of four, you have to work very efficiently... bringing in uPerform has made a huge difference for us.”
  — Nicole Brady (05:29)

• Team Dynamic:

  • Diverse backgrounds (in-person training, workflow design, healthcare experience) fuel creativity and supportiveness

4. Innovating “Untrainable” Workflows

• Challenge: Simulating Epic workflows (MyChart, Care Everywhere, Compass Rose) that aren’t typically available in training environments

• Solution: Collaborated with analysts to mock up real-life scenarios, letting staff experience patient perspectives in simulations (08:31–10:26).

• Memorable Moment:

  “We made a simulation that let them become the patient... so our staff know exactly what the patients are looking at and can help walk them through those tools really confidently.”
  — Allison Holtman (09:50)

• Nicole’s Perspective:

  “Allowing our staff to know what it looks like through the patient’s eyes has allowed us to empower our patients to be an active participant in their healthcare.”
  — Nicole Brady (10:26)

5. Clinician & Patient Impact

• Real-World Change for Providers (12:03–13:27):

  • Dr. Sultana (Regional Medical Director, utilization rate of 117%) finds process takes ~5 minutes; approvals often come within 30–40 minutes or even same-day
  • Drastically reduces administrative burden; more time with patients, less with paperwork

• Quote:

  “She said the process is so quick and convenient, usually only about five minutes to submit a prior auth request ... sometimes she could even wrap up that authorization the same day.”
  — Allison Holtman (12:32)

6. Measuring and Sustaining ROI

• Staff & Leadership Perception (13:33–15:55):

  • Flexibility in delivery (tip sheets, simulations) supports varied adult learning styles
  • Data from completed trainings inform continuous improvement
  • Embedding tools in Epic, not scattered on SharePoint, streamlines access and user experience
  • Clear evidence for leadership of training’s role in operational, clinical, and financial performance

• Quote:

  “We have seen an increase in users utilizing tip sheets and simulations than we have ever before.”
  — Nicole Brady (15:33)

7. Guiding Principles for Ongoing Success

• Looking Forward (16:11–17:48):

  • Stay aligned with strategic organizational priorities
  • Continually improve through early collaboration, open feedback, and understanding “the why”
  • Focus on user-centered, practical training as a means to improve both efficiency and patient care

• Memorable Closing Principle:

  “When you really understand the why behind a change ... you’re able to design practical, targeted training that actually supports end users and ultimately helps improve patient care.”
  — Nicole Brady (17:18)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “The impact is pretty crazy. ... What stands out the most is what that means for our patients. ... For Access patients who face the biggest barriers, those time savings really matter.”
  — Allison Holtman (02:35)

• “My top three takeaways would be collaborate early, keep that feedback flowing back and forth and always design your training with the user and the why in mind.”
  — Allison Holtman (04:39)

• “A lot of our MAs cross train to the front desk. So it’s good if everything looks the same, no matter if you’re an MA, front desk, provider...”
  — Nicole Brady (06:50)

• “Training has to feel real. ... Mix things up, let people experience workflows from a different perspective, which really deepens their understanding and allows for a better patient experience.”
  — Nicole Brady (10:26)

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Key Timestamps

• [02:00] — Results overview (denial drop, time saved)
• [03:15] — Collaboration and strategic planning
• [04:39] — Three key principles for training
• [05:29] — Scaling with a small team: efficiency lessons
• [08:31] — Innovating MyChart, Compass Rose, Care Everywhere training
• [12:03] — Clinician workflow change story (Dr. Sultana)
• [13:33] — Impact on staff/leadership confidence and continuous improvement
• [16:11] — What’s next: guiding principles for ongoing improvement

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Conclusion

Nicole Brady and Allison Holtman’s experiences at Access underscore the transformative power of collaborative, user-focused, and scalable training—even with minimal resources. Their approach not only delivered measurable ROI but also strengthened clinical workflows, improved patient outcomes, and elevated organizational culture. Their three guiding principles—collaborate early, keep feedback open, and understand the why—will continue driving success as Access evolves.

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Transcript

[A]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I am Reece, Healthcare Solutions Director at Uperform, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by two outstanding guests from Access Community Health Network, a community rooted system of 35 healthcare centers serving patients across Chicago and suburban Cook and DuPage counties. First, we have Nicole Brady is training manager at Axxess. Nicole brings more than 13 years of training experience along remarkable talent for translating complex systems into clear confidence building learning experiences. We're also joined by Allison Holtman, Epic Ambulatory Clinical Principal Trainer. With over 15 years in the EPIC training world. Allison combines deep clinical workflow expertise with a passion for making learning approachable, meaningful and engaging. Since joining Access in 2021, she's been dedicated to designing innovative training models that empower staff and also elevate the patient experience. Axxess may be the region's largest federally qualified health center, but what truly sets it apart is its commitment to scaling provider and patient education with consistency and dedication. All powered by a small but mighty team. Nicole and Ellison, thank you so much for being here today.

[B]

Yeah, happy to be here.

[C]

Yeah, thanks for having us.

[A]

Fantastic. Let's dive into the conversation. I have to start with Impact. Access has seen remarkable results. A 15 to 25% drop in denials, a 30% reduction in help desk requests, and over 130 hours saved on prior authorizations each month. Nicole, starting with you, can you share what those numbers mean for your organization and how you achieve them?

[B]

Yeah, I would love to. The results, as you had just said, are pretty impressive. Just to restate those statistics, since moving to that electronic prior authorization in 2024, we've seen a 15 to 25% drop in denials, a 30% reduction in help desk requests, and we're saving more than 130 hours every single month, which allows our providers to really get back to those patients and provide excellent patient care. I'm going to let Allison speak more about it since she is the one that create the training for this.

[A]

Fantastic.

[C]

Yeah, the impact is pretty crazy. So when we made that switch, it totally transformed the way our providers work. Today, about 99% of our prior authorizations are done electronically. The difference is huge. What stands out the most is what that means for our patients. So faster authorizations mean fewer delays, less pharmacy frustration, and quicker access to the medications and services that they need. So for access patients who face the biggest barriers, those time savings really matter.

[B]

And this didn't happen by accident. It was really the result of collaboration. We have a clinical informatics strategic group that creates a space for us as trainers, analysts and operational frontline staff to get involved early in every process we roll out. We also had fantastic provider champions who helped us test workflows, gave us feedback and talk things through with their colleagues.

[C]

Yeah, I think really being brought in early helped us understand the why behind these projects and doing what we're doing. And that meant we could design training that solved problems before they even came up. Part of that was we built a hands on simulation that walks staff through the entire process from submitting the prior auth to responding to the payer and then getting that final approval or managing an appeal. And I think that was especially impactful because I was able to create that simulation with our analyst and they're the ones that helped with that payer interface so the provider could really see the different workflows and get that back and forth sense of what it would be like at Go Live. And that isn't something that's available in a training environment. So I'd say if anyone is thinking about doing something similar, my top three takeaways would be collaborate early, keep that feedback flowing back and forth and always design your training with the user and the why in mind.

[A]

There's a synergy that I'm hearing here. As you and your teams collaborate and understand the why, what you move forward to your clinicians and staff is also understanding the why really vital aspects of change management behind the scenes. I know something that many wouldn't know and that is that these results came from a training team of just four. You heard that right folks. Just for people, how did your team manage to scale EPIC training across the organization so effectively with a team of that size?

[B]

Lots of caffeine, but no, we learn how to work smarter. So when you're a team of four, you have to work very efficiently. So what we do to do that is we work with our analysts to make sure we're involved early in the decision making process, which that does take educating those analysts to make sure you get invited to meetings to get involved early on so you can help shape, shape workflows and training and you know, that helps us keep training aligned with real world workflows and keeping the why in everyone's mind, which makes training more effective and well rounded. We also reuse and centralized materials so we're not starting from scratch every time. And bringing in uperform has made a huge difference for us. It let us shift much of our training to virtual formats. And with 35 health centers, that's huge.

[C]

Yeah, for sure before you perform. Coordinating in person training for 35 health centers across Chicagoland was just a lot. We also plug training materials directly into EPIC so our end users could access tip sheets and guides and things that they needed help with while they're with their patients. And that's been so convenient for everyone, including the patients.

[B]

Exactly. And I would suggest creating templates for simulation tip sheets and guides because that allows you to keep a consistent learning experience and save time. A lot of our mas cross train to the front desk. So it's good if everything looks the same, no matter if you're an MA front desk provider and housing everything in epic's knowledge hub, which is what we call uperform and and on the Internet, also means users can find what they need without having to hunt them down and without having to really leave epic. But honestly, the best part is our team dynamic. We all bring different experiences with in person training, cross functional workflows, extensive EPIC knowledge. Some of us have worked in healthcare, so that helps shape when we think about how to train our end users. Cause some of us have been those and and our team loves working together. The energy carries throughout everything we build and we help each other no matter what.

[A]

I think most teams would benefit from that sort of synergy and dynamic. And I love the templated approach. So important across your learning ecosphere in your organization. The next question I want to connect with you guys on and this really impressed me when I saw your presentation in Dallas a few months ago. I feel like you have figured out a way to master training the untrainable Mychart Care everywhere Compass rows aren't traditionally accessible in the EPIC training environments. Allison, how did you create that hands on realistic learning experiences for those tools?

[C]

Yeah, those were tricky. So the challenge for us with Compass Rose and care everywhere, things like that, is that we're an ambulatory only organization. When we had to train a Compass Rose workflow that relied on an admission or a discharge or some type of transition of care workflow, we had no way to do that in the training environment. Similar to what I did with the electronic prior authentication simulation. I really had to work and work with my analysts to help mock up some admission and discharge documentation at another local hospital. And that way it made it look like our training patients had actually been admitted or discharged. So for Compass Rose, our care coordinators could review that admission or discharge information and then pick up their workflow and continue their documentation in the Compass Rose framework. The other thing you mentioned was MyChart training. So here at Access. We call it My Access Health. And that was kind of a fun one to do as well. So we didn't want to just hand our staff a tip sheet on what My Access Health is and have them explain it to the patient. So what we did was we made a simulation that let them become the patient so they could log in and do the simulation as a patient from their perspective. And that totally changed troubleshooting so our staff know exactly what the patients are looking at and can help walk them through those, those tools really confidently.

[B]

And I think that is pretty cool and unique to us here at Access because I've never been shown anything about MyChart, even by my own provider. It's just like, hey, check your MyChart. And no one has ever shown me what it is or how to use it. It's more of a figure it out on your own kind of thing. So allowing our staff to know what it looks like through the patient's eyes have allowed us to empower our patients to be an active participant in their healthcare. And for me, the big takeaway is that training has to feel real. Work with your analysts to build out the interfaces and workflows so users are seeing exactly what they'll see in production. And if you can mix things up, let people experience workflows from a different perspective, which really deepens their understanding and allows for a better patient experience.

[A]

I totally agree with that, Nicole. I'm thinking as a patient, the only real education I have ever received about MyChart is a QR code and a reminder or an encouragement to download it and use it. I could see where a little more guidance from staff or from my provider team would really stand out as a positive experience and probably would translate over to when I'm completing my post visit survey. You mentioned earlier that clinicians are saving 15 to 20 minutes per authorization. When you add that up, it's more than 130 hours every single month. What does that actually look like in practice and how has it changed clinician workflows or even again the patient's experience at Access?

[B]

Yeah, you've mentioned the time savings and one example that really sticks out to me is our regional medical director, Dr. Sultana, who, who has has an impressive utilization rate of 117%. So she is busy. So allowing her to save time with electronic prior authorizations has a big impact on her, allowing her to spend more time with her patients and really, you know, have that great patient care experience.

[C]

Yeah, so I love working with Dr. Sultana. She's one of our provider champions. And she said the process is so quick and convenient, usually only about five minutes to submit a prior auth request. And because everything is electronic, she can easily add labs, notes, or other clinical information to that prior authorization. She did say too, like, in most cases, decisions came back within 30 to 40 minutes. Sometimes she could even wrap up that authorization the same day. So for patients that are waiting on medication, that's a huge deal. And for clinicians, it means more time caring for patients and less time buried in paperwork and faxing things back and forth to insurance companies.

[A]

Wow, that sounds like a win win to me. I love that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Beyond the numbers, I'd love to zoom out. How has this training transformation influenced your staff's confidence, your leadership's confidence, leadership's perception of training as a potential driver of roi.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What I really love about this approach is how much flexibility it gives our team. We get to be creative with how we build training materials and offer them in different formats. So as many know, people learn in different ways, especially adults.

[A]

So.

[B]

So some learn by tip sheets. Some need that simulation to go ahead and really get the workflow. It allows us also to respond to requests faster and work a lot more efficiently. And one of the big perks, I would say, is the data we get back from completed trainings. It gives us a clear idea of what's working, what might need tweaking, and where we might want to add a little more meat to a training document or simulation. We're able to see how many hits we get so we know which tips, sheets and simulations are working. And then maybe we can reach out to end users and ask, you know, what's not working about this and let us figure that out and make it better for you.

[C]

Yeah. And I also say from the end user side, everything is so much easier to get to. Having the content right inside EPIC means they don't have to dig through old SharePoint folders or, you know, old links or try to remember where something was saved. It's all right there when they need it. And I also have to say, the learning pathways have been such a game changer for us, especially for upgrade training. It's made communication and instruction so much more simpler and more organized compared to our old SharePoint setup. The new Our Access Knowledge Hub site, It's clean, it's professional, it's interactive, it's just so much more put together and it really feels like a big step forward in how we push training out to our end users.

[B]

And just to loop back to leadership, I Think all of this has helped leadership and frontline staff see just how much training contributes to real outcomes. It allows for better efficiency, fewer barriers, and ultimately better care for our patients. With utilizing Uperform, we have seen an increase in users utilizing tip sheets and simulations than we have ever before.

[A]

That's incredible. As we look forward, I know your team is always thinking about what's next. What is next for your team as you continue building on this momentum? And how do you plan to keep pushing the boundaries of efficient and impactful training?

[B]

Yeah, looking ahead, our team is going to be tightly connected to our organization's strategic initiatives. And with uperform being a big part of how we create training, it allows us to support that at scale. We can more efficiently with you perform, allow access to get initiatives done in a more timely manner. And I think what's really important is that we keep coming back to our three guiding principles. Collaborate early. So building those strong relationships between trainers, analysts and clinicians right from the start makes a huge difference. When everyone is connected, we can design training that actually solves real day to day challenges and stays aligned with what the organization is trying to accomplish.

[C]

Yeah, and definitely keeping that feedback open, having established work groups and clear communication between IS and our clinical teams really gives providers a voice and it helps us spot pain points early. And then we can work together to create solutions that actually make a difference.

[B]

And something I really, really believe in and cannot stress enough is you need to understand the why. So as a trainer you can design user centered and practical training. When you really understand the why behind a change or implementation challenge, you're able to design practical targeted training that actually supports end users and ultimately helps improve patient care. And those principles have carried us this far and they'll keep shaping how we work in the future.

[A]

This has been such an inspiring conversation. I really appreciate the sharing of those guiding principles. Collaborate early. Open feedback Understanding the why your team has proven and really proves that smart, efficient training, even with your limited resource, can drive massive operational and clinical impact. Nicole and Allison, thank you for sharing your insight, your experience and the incredible work happening at Access Community Health Network. And thanks to all of you for listening. That wraps up today's episode of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by uperform. Youperform is a just in time learning platform that bolts onto your ehr, erp, HCM and other enterprise apps to centralize software training and support. You can tune into more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting the Beckers podcast [e-mail] thanks to both of you so much.

[C]

Thank you.