From changing reimbursement levels to the evolving CFO role, hospital and health system financial leaders are dealing with a number of challenges.
Regarding the numerous issues CFOs are facing, financial leaders from hospitals and systems across the nation shared the following pieces of advice with Becker's Hospital Review.
1. Caleb Johnson, CFO of Quincy, Calif.-based Plumas Hospital District, offered advice on improving revenue cycle management. "I'm a strong believer in the DMAIC quality strategy for improving processes," he said. "That is, to define the problem, measure your processes' performance, analyze their root causes of variation, improve process improvement by addressing/eliminating the root causes, and control the improved process to avoid future/further variation. The revenue cycle can be overwhelming or unwieldy at times, with so many critical inputs whose variations may cause unexpected, harmful results. The DMAIC structure helps put method to the madness, and convert words and intentions into actions and positive results."
2. Mark Anderson, CFO of Lane Regional Medical Center in Zachary, La., shared his thoughts on improving point-of-service collection rates. "We put registration staff through an intensive 10-week boot camp to ensure they have the technical and emotional intelligence to engage our patients in productive financial conversations," he said. "Employee training and engagement has been key to improving upfront collections."
3. Pat McGuire, CFO of Ascension Michigan, shared his thoughts on how CFOs and CMOs can work together to implement alternative payment models. "As financial leaders who are accustomed to dealing with data and analytics, I think we can step in and play an important role in developing and implementing these alternative payments," he said.
4. Brian Scott, CFO, chief administrative officer and treasurer of San Diego-based AMN Healthcare, shared his views on the skills required to be an effective leader. "The skills you need to be a leader today are different than 10 or 20 years ago," he said. "Being a subject matter expert is not enough. You must be adaptable, you must be able to inspire others and, importantly, you must invest in succession planning."
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