This week's 5 must-reads for hospital CFOs

Here are five articles recently published by Becker's Hospital Review that offer insight on price transparency, charitable obligations and more.

1. 22 healthcare bankruptcies so far in 2017
From reimbursement landscape challenges to dwindling patient volumes, many factors lead hospitals and other healthcare organizations to file for bankruptcy.

2. Physician who researches price transparency at Harvard: My experience price shopping for care was terrible
Ateev Mehrotra, MD, an associate professor of healthcare policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and a hospitalist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, used one word to describe how his experience price shopping for care went — terribly.

3. Sen. Grassley: Tax-exempt hospitals shouldn't need 'herculean oversight' to meet charitable obligations
Tax-exempt hospitals across the nation are using aggressive collection practices and withholding services until patients prove their ability to pay, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a recent op-ed in STAT.

4. Kaufman Hall: 1 in 4 hospitals have no cost reduction goals for the next 5 years
Approximately 25 percent of hospital and health system executives have no cost reduction goals for their organizations over the next five years, despite 96 percent of executives noting that transforming costs is a "significant" or "very significant" need for their organization, according to survey findings published by Kaufman Hall.

5. California hospital's reporting errors cause Medicare to overpay 173 other facilities
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley, Calif., included wage data errors in its fiscal year 2014 Medicare cost report, which caused 173 other California hospitals to receive Medicare overpayments in the first six months of fiscal year 2017, according to a report from HHS' Office of Inspector General.

This week's 5 must-reads for hospital CFOs

More articles on healthcare finance: