The Next Player Up

Written By: Asbel Montes, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, SGS

A coach loses. Then the coach shows up Monday morning and calls the next play.
That is leadership.

We recently welcomed Dr. Octavious Bishop to our Playbook webinar series. Dr. O (as I like to call him), is a former NFL player who now teaches at the University of Texas. He joined us to talk about the post-game locker room dynamics. What stayed with our clients was not a highlight reel. It was something quieter: what a leader does after the loss.

Two notes landed in my inbox afterward, and both pointed to the same thing. One client described her staff turnover in football terms, new players every season, and admitted the phrase that stuck with her was “next biller up.” Another called it a series they were thankful for where I leaned into the uncomfortable to facilitate even though I was not an expert at sport analogies.

So what does a post-game locker room have to do with ambulance reimbursement? More than you might think, You lose more often than you win. A denial comes back. A claim ages past timely filing. A payer changes the rules mid-season. And the job the next morning is the same job it was the morning before: get the team ready, and get back on the field.

I keep coming back to two questions when I think about leading a billing team through this kind of season.

First, who is my next player up?
Turnover is not a crisis to manage. It is a roster to build. A depth chart only works if someone has been developed to step into multiple positions, not just the job they were hired to do.

Second, am I still coaching, or am I just remembering how to play?
The leaders who stay effective are the ones who move from the field to the sideline without losing their understanding of the game. They watch film. They call plays. They do not coach from nostalgia.

I will admit where this framework runs thin.

Sports analogies are clean. Revenue cycle is not. A coach gets a new season and a fresh scoreboard. A biller often doesn't get that reset; the aging bucket doesn't forgive last quarter. The metaphor works because it describes effort and posture, not because the two jobs are identical. Use it for what it is good for and leave it there.

One of the notes I received also raised something we have not tackled yet in this series: succession.
How does a leader move from player to coach to observing from the sidelines, and still matter?
That is worth its own conversation, and probably its own quarter.

For now, ask your team who the next player up is.
Then make sure that person knows it.