How Strategic Credentialing Support Solves Healthcare Staffing Challenges

Article

Valley View is an independent, nonprofit health system that has served Glenwood
Springs and the surrounding Colorado region since 1955. For more than 70 years,
Valley View has delivered high-quality, patient-centered care through a team of
dedicated and highly specialized providers. The organization remains committed to
maintaining operational excellence while continuing to meet the evolving healthcare
needs of its community.

To better understand a recent operational challenge and the path forward, we spoke with Sarah Moore, CHFP, COC, Director of Revenue Cycle.

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THE CHALLENGE

Dean Dorton has maintained a longstanding advisory relationship with Valley View,
supporting various operational and financial initiatives over the years. Recently, Valley View faced a new and urgent challenge: prolonged staffing vacancies within key revenue cycle functions.

At the same time, the organization was onboarding newly employed physicians —
increased pressure on internal resources responsible for Medicare enrollment and credentialing.

Delays in provider enrollment could lead to claims disruptions, reimbursement delays, and unnecessary strain on cash flow.

Valley View needed immediate, specialized credentialing support to ensure business continuity and protect revenue integrity.

The Dean Dorton Solution

Dean Dorton partnered closely with Valley View’s leadership to assess the situation and
co-develop a targeted solution focused on timely and accurate Medicare enrollment for
new providers.

Our team quickly mobilized to:

  • Integrate with Valley View’s internal teams and leadership
  • Stabilize credentialing workflows during staffing gaps
  • Provide on-demand Medicare enrollment expertise
  • Ensure compliance and accuracy throughout the enrollment process
  • Minimize risk of reimbursement delays or claim denials

By embedding experienced credentialing professionals into the process, Dean
Dorton helped maintain operational continuity and safeguard Valley View’s
revenue cycle during a critical transition period.

THE IMPACT

Through collaborative planning and rapid deployment of credentialing expertise, Valley
View was able to:

  • Avoid enrollment-related delays for newly employed providers
  • Protect revenue and cash flow during staffing vacancies
  • Maintain compliance and accuracy in Medicare enrollment
  • Provide operational stability during a period of transition

By partnering strategically rather than reactively, Valley View ensured its providers could
begin serving patients without administrative disruption.

Dean Dorton’s team helped us navigate internal staffing by providing on-demand credentialing support when we needed it most. Their team immediately engaged with our internal resources and leadership to identify solutions and provide stability during a challenging time.

Sarah Moore, CHFP, COC
Director of Revenue Cycle

Article

West Coast Podiatry Center in Bradenton and Sarasota, FL, is the area’s leading choice for foot and ankle care. Since 1996, their team has helped over 20,000 patients with their combination of specialized expertise, a caring staff, and cutting-edge technology. We spoke recently
with Becky Fisher, Practice Administrator, to learn more about a recent challenge and their recent experience with Dean Dorton.

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THE CHALLENGE

Dean Dorton’s relationship with West Coast Podiatry Center began earlier this year as a Dean Dorton Healthcare Solutions client due to a recent deactivation of their group DME enrollment. A DME deactivation means that a Durable Medical Equipment supplier’s Medicare billing privileges have been stopped, preventing them from receiving payment for services until they correct the issue and submit an application for reactivation. This can occur for various reasons, such as not submitting claims for a set period, failing to report changes to their enrollment information, or being non-operational.

The Solution

Dean Dorton began working closely with West Coast Podiatry to get their DME enrollment reactivated in a timely fashion. We collected all the necessary documentation and were able to get their DME reactivated in under two months of submission. In light of the reactivation
occurring so quickly, the practice reached out requesting additional support from Dean Dorton Healthcare Solutions on the Medicaid side, and became an annual client. Dean Dorton has provided the practice with confidence that their Medicare and Medicaid enrollments will be maintained moving forward, allowing the practice to focus more on patient care.

Article

Dr. Daniel Lynch, founder and owner of Pain Relief Centers, built a thriving, multilocation pain management practice serving thousands of patients across Louisville, Kentucky. After years of growth and service, he began planning for retirement and sought a thoughtful transition strategy that would protect his patients, support his staff, and position the practice for continued success. To evaluate his options and build a structured transition plan, Dr. Lynch engaged Dorton’s Healthcare Consulting team for strategic guidance and transaction support.

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THE CHALLENGE

Dr. Lynch had successfully grown and operated a respected multi-location medical practice, but he was ready to step away from the operational and administrative demands of ownership. With increasing family commitments and evolving personal priorities, he wanted a clear path toward retirement—without disrupting patient care or destabilizing his team.

Key priorities included:

  • Preserving continuity of care for patients
  • Creating stability and opportunity for staff
  • Protecting the culture and values of the practice
  • Identifying a qualified strategic partner or acquirer
  • Structuring a transition that supported his personal and professional
    goals

Although Dean Dorton had previously provided limited services, there was no longstanding advisory relationship in place. Dr. Lynch needed a trusted partner who could quickly step in, understand his goals, and guide him through a complex transition Dean Dorton worked alongside Dr. Lynch to evaluate options, define success criteria, and lead a disciplined partner screening and selection process.

The Solution

Dean Dorton developed and executed a structured transition strategy designed to identify the right strategic partner and create a smooth ownership exit pathway.  

The team:

  • Assessed operational and financial performance
  • Evaluated transition and transaction options
  • Identified and screened potential partners and acquirers
  • Facilitated stakeholder discussions and due diligence
  • Analyzed financial, operational, and cultural fit factors
  • Helped structure terms aligned with Dr. Lynch’s goals

The process focused on securing a partner capable of successfully absorbing operations, onboarding staff, and maintaining continuity of patient care—while giving Dr. Lynch a defined and confident off-ramp from daily clinical and ownership responsibilities.
Through coordinated planning, financial analysis, and stakeholder alignment, Dean helped guide the transaction to a successful outcome. The practice transitioned employees and patients were supported, and Dr. Lynch moved forward into his next chapter with confidence.

“Dean Dorton’s team helped me navigate this critical point in my career by bringing clarity to my options and support when I needed it most. Their team
immediately engaged with me to identify potential solutions and outlined a plan that I could support.”

– Daniel Lynch, MD

WHY DEAN DORTON?

Dean Dorton partners with healthcare organizations to strengthen financial and operational performance while navigating complex strategic decisions. Our healthcare advisory team brings deep industry experience across physician practices, hospitals, and health systems.

We provide integrated support across:

  • Healthcare consulting and strategy
  • Transaction and transition advisory
  • Financial and operational analysis
  • Revenue cycle and compliance
  • Accounting and tax planning
  • Technology and process improvement

Our collaborative approach allows healthcare leaders to remain focused on clinical care while we provide the tactical and strategic guidance needed to move
forward with clarity.

“Dean Dorton provided expertise and guidance where I needed it most. I very much appreciated working with them to successfully transition my practice.”

– Daniel Lynch, MD

Article

Desiring to begin to transform care delivery in their practice, Lakeside Specialists* located in the Southern United States, implemented an advanced focus on consistent and appropriate diagnosis coding analysis to develop a measurable state of their Risk Adjustment Factor Scores (RAF).

*Lakeside Specialists is a pseudonym used to protect the client’s name and identity for this case study.

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THE CHALLENGE

Medicare Advantage (MA) is poised to grow at a rate of 10-12%, representing market penetration of more than 46%. Senior healthcare consumers have found lower cost patient to provider entry, Part D coverage, and expanded plan benefits to be strong enrollment attractors.

Medicare Advantage is administered by insurance plans under an arrangement with CMS. Many newer members, aging into MA eligibility, have more experience with commercial managed care thereby making MA plan selection attractive to the senior population many specialty practices serve.

Medicare Advantage offers improved contract customization through various incentive and payment structures with ranges of tolerable risk entry. Medicare Advantage reduces patient identification challenges and can streamline custom cost target development. Medicare Advantage is driving the shift to value and will reverse the trend of slowing value adoption.

The Solution

The initial project was intentionally limited to one payer group, but positive results drive encouragement toward a larger practice initiative. Demonstrated risk adjustment optimization, applied to clinical pathways and patient experience, created a model platform for payer planning discussion that permitted the practice to implement and succeed in Medicare Advantage payer contracting.

Results
  • Advanced practice focus on consistent and appropriate diagnosis coding
  • Established the introductory pathway to shared savings and value payment application
  • Strengthened Medicare Advantage reimbursement expansion
RAF Segmentation
Increase of 9 percent

in reimbursement and practice readiness to drive migration into value-based care

Article

The Lexington Clinic is Central Kentucky’s largest medical group, with over 180 providers working in 30+ specialties and 1,000 staff members across 25 locations. It has been serving patients for over a century. Heather Clemmons, Sr. Director of Accounting, has worked at the Lexington Clinic for 31 years. And, until recently, the clinic’s accounting software had been around since before Heather even started.

Dean Dorton spoke with Heather to understand the challenges the Lexington Clinic faced and the top benefits they now see after switching to Sage Intacct.

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THE CHALLENGE

First installed in the late 1980s, the clinic’s old accounting technology had long exceeded its expiration date. A sizable organization like the Lexington Clinic requires high-level accounting characterized by accuracy, efficiency, and scalability. That’s not what their three-decades-old accounting software could offer.

Running reports and turning accounting into a paper-bound process driven by printing, mailing, and storing documents was tedious. As the Lexington Clinic grew and its accounting requirements evolved, the old software failed to keep up. Not only was it creating as many problems for the accounting team as it solved; but the clinic also had to hire a full-time programmer to keep the software up and running.

The need for better software was obvious, but inertia made change difficult – until the developer of their old software suspended support. They were forced to make a change and do so relatively quickly. It could have become an anxious situation followed by a frantic search for a replacement. Worse, it could have resulted in the wrong new accounting software. But thanks to Sage Inacct, none of that happened.

The Solution

Dean Dorton conducted a comprehensive discovery process to understand how the accounting team worked and what capabilities they required. Accounting technology experts determined that the Sage Intacct financial management platform could not just replace Lexington Clinic’s outgoing software but drastically upgrade their current and future accounting functions.

In addition to implementing and introducing Sage Intacct, Dean Dorton integrated it with a new solution to automate accounts payable. Along with technological upgrades, Dean Dorton helped the entire Lexington Clinic organization make the most of Sage Intacct from day one.

Results with Sage Intacct

The Lexington Clinic has gained a multitude of benefits since implementing Sage Intacct. The cloud-based solution can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, and allows real-time insight into business financials so the organization can spend more time on strategic activities and its goal of updating and streamlining its processes.

“Dean Dorton is knowledgeable and supportive…they’re willing to understand problems and tailor solutions.”

— Heather Clemmons, Sr. Director of Accounting at the Lexington Clinic

Sage Intacct helps the accounting department at the Lexington Clinic shrink its footprint while expanding its impact. Automation and efficiency helped reduce labor costs and cut the month-end close time nearly in half. Additionally, equipping managers with self-service reporting capabilities plus the ability to drill down into the information enhanced their financial intelligence during decision-making. Finally, working with a cloud-based solution enabled Heather’s team to shift to remote work when the pandemic started, and later adopt a hybrid work model.

Article

Beaumont Family Dentistry is a full-service dental practice, providing premium dental care to patients in Lexington, Kentucky and surrounding communities for more than 35 years. The practice’s three locations leverage advanced technology, making dental care faster and easier.

Dean Dorton spoke with Hannah Golibersuch, Director of Operations at Beaumont Family Dentistry, to take a deep dive into their operational team’s experience with Dean Dorton’s accounting and financial outsourcing (Dean Dorton AFO) services.

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THE CHALLENGE

Before using Dean Dorton’s AFO services, Beaumont Family Dentistry managed all accounting functions and processes internally through QuickBooks with just two employees. Some of the biggest barriers the dental practice faced with the QuickBooks platform was the lack of real-time data, which hindered the capability to glean accurate financial reporting to guide business decisions and manage expense allocation for financial reporting.

Beaumont Family Dentistry’s core management team could not make strategic business decisions regarding growth due to the lack of accurate financial reporting.

“We had a hard time trusting the data presented to us, which made us skeptical in any decision-making that required some sort of financial risk”

— HANNAH GOLIBERSUCH, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
THE SOLUTION

Due to Beaumont Family Dentistry’s working relationship with Dean Dorton’s tax service group, Beaumont Family Dentistry made the decision to also work with Dean Dorton’s AFO team. The strong relationship with Dean Dorton’s tax team made the addition of AFO services an easy, compatible, and smooth transition.

Dean Dorton provides accounting and financial outsourcing services through intuitive, cloud-based accounting technology that the team at Beaumont Family Dentistry also has access to anytime, anywhere. Aside from 24/7 access to their real-time financial data, Beaumont Family Dentistry benefits from multi-dimensional dashboards and measurable metrics to track continuous business growth, with relevant key performance indicators for their practice. This transition allowed Beaumont Family Dentistry to reallocate team member efforts away from mundane repetitive accounting tasks and to more valuable long-term strategic roles.

“Accurate financial reporting has helped tremendously with guiding our business decisions.”

— HANNAH GOLIBERSUCH, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
BENEFITS OF AFO SERVICES

The two biggest benefits that Beaumont Family Dentistry experienced by teaming up with the Dean Dorton AFO team were accurate financial reporting and financial report organization, particularly regarding expense location and the profit and loss (P&L) statement.

“We were able to reduce a portion of our overhead by centralizing services with the AFO team,”

“Dean Dorton also ensures that the month’s financials are closed within an appropriate timeframe, which we struggled to do beforehand, and that we meet on a monthly basis so that all data can be reviewed to ensure its accuracy.”

— HANNAH GOLIBERSUCH, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Additionally, Beaumont Family Dentistry now has access to the breadth of knowledge and industry experience that Dean Dorton’s team brings to the table. From tax implications, GAAP accounting, cash management, and multi-entity management, the Dean Dorton AFO team is able to provide expertise in each of these areas.