Increasing waves of uncertainty, from global supply chain disruption and economic volatility to potential regulatory shifts, are continuing to shape CFO healthcare priorities in 2025, according to a new Deloitte survey.
The survey of healthcare financial leaders has been conducted by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions annually since 2020. It comprises responses from 64 U.S. health system and health plan finance leaders.
Here are six findings from the survey:
1. The top external factors that overshadowed internal healthcare issues for finance leaders were business conditions (84%), evolving consumer needs (81%) and growth and financial performance (73%). While cybersecurity, workforce challenges and cost reduction have consistently ranked among the most concerns over the last few years, external factors have taken precedence in 2025.
Some of the business conditions that healthcare finance leaders are most concerned about include the current economic climate, potential healthcare policy and regulatory change impacts, and supply chain disruptions.
2. Health system finance leaders pointed to tariffs and trade policy changes, Medicaid reform and data and technology regulatory changes as the three upcoming or potential regulatory and policy changes that they expect to have the largest impact on their organizations. Health plan finance leaders pointed to drug pricing policy changes, tariffs and trade policy changes and Medicaid reform as their top three.
3. When looking at areas where healthcare organizations can achieve stronger impact from financial transformation levers, 28% of health system financial leaders said mergers and acquisitions bring a strong impact of strategic and revenue growth, 50% said moderate or no impact and 22% said M&A is not a focus or they were not sure. Thirty-one percent of health system leaders said strategic, value-based or risk-based contracting brings strategic and revenue growth, while 63% said it brings moderate or no impact and 6% said it is not a focus or they were not sure. Strategic alliances and partnership saw a 34% strong impact, 57% moderate or no impact and 9% were not focused on that aspect or unsure on the strategic and revenue growth.
On the health plan side, 25% of financial leaders saw strategic and revenue growth through M&A, 59% saw moderate or no impact, and 16% were not focused on that aspect or unsure. Strategic, value-based or risk-based contracting saw 22% of health plan finance leaders finding a strong impact for strategic and revenue growth, while 62% saw moderate or no impact, and 16% were not focused on that aspect or unsure. Lastly, strategic alliances and partnership saw a 31% strong impact, 53% moderate or no impact, and 16% of health plan finance leaders were not focused on that aspect or were unsure.
4. “According to our survey, 31% of health systems and 41% of health plans report that they have realized strong impact from their optimization efforts,” Deloitte wrote in a June 24 article on its website. “To help maximize the impact of these efforts, organizations should consider analyzing their service areas and lines of business and divesting or reducing non-beneficial services. However, as organizations evaluate their portfolios, they may want to consider the value of continuing to invest in areas that may not directly generate revenue but are important for enhancing customer experience, retention, and loyalty.”
5. To help tackle the shaky regulatory and economic environment, the survey found that health plan and health system respondents are prioritizing technology investments to improve reporting capabilities, scenario planning and data quality. However, only one-third of respondents reported that efforts to modernize technology such as enterprise resources planning systems, electronic health records and data modernization have led to a strong impact.
The survey found 53% of health system respondents saw strong impact from using transformative technologies such as generative AI and cloud capabilities, while 72% of health plan respondents saw moderate to no impact from the tools.
6. To help finance leaders create a resilient organization, the Deloitte survey suggested driving strategic investments, enabling data-driven decisions and optimizing cost structures.
