Tracy Moyer, who started her role as executive vice president and CFO of Hershey, Pa.-based Penn State Health in early October, is focused on the delicate balance of maintaining growth and stability as she executes her plan to promote optimization and access efficiency.
However, this isn’t Ms. Moyer’s first rodeo with Penn State Health, as she’s served as interim CFO since June and has been with the system for 21 years. Some of Ms. Moyer’s priorities include optimizing workforce, maximizing use of physical assets and growing and diversifying revenue streams.
“I have been with the health system for a long time,” Ms. Moyer said during a Becker’s CFO+Revenue Cycle Podcast episode.”We want to ensure that we’re deploying staff efficiently and effectively across our health system, which will also allow us to grow into new markets and be as efficient as possible and provide access to our patients.”
Amid uncertainty across the healthcare industry, Ms. Moyer said while generationally we have seen federal headwinds, none have been like what we are facing today. She stressed the importance of leveraging capital access and approaching partnerships with a new lens.
“The federal budget reconciliation is going to be interesting across the nation [and] Pennsylvania, primarily the state directed payment area is one of the things that all eyes are on,” she said. “That, along with eligibility and Medicaid, those things could impact us from a payer perspective. We want to be vigilant about that, and evaluate them.”
Looking to the future, Ms. Moyer said the Penn State Health finance team has been on “a clear path to optimization since 2022,” with a plan that continues to move forward. She pointed to the system’s upcoming Epic implementation, which will be a “game changer” to streamline processes and group data integrity, allowing for better organizational services.
Ms. Moyer also touched on how the CFO role has evolved over her career, and noted a heightened reliance on technology in financial leadership.
“I think the CFO role more heavily aligns with the CIO role than maybe it has in its past, primarily because everything is technology-driven,” she said. “Revenue cycle and your back office functions are all technology platforms.”
For incoming healthcare leaders interested in exploring financial positions, Ms. Moyer encouraged them to keep avenues broad.
“[This] is a sign of the times, and we’re seeing skill sets in the finance team siloed,” she said. “If you think about finance positions maybe 20 years ago in healthcare, you kind of got to touch every lane of healthcare finance, and now, as we become systems, you develop a specialty in finance … keep your eyes wide open and take on opportunities to get yourself exposed to multiple lanes in healthcare finance that will allow you to grow into other positions. Opportunities are endless when you get to that level.”
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