Healthcare Finance and Business Strategy

Hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgical centers would receive a 2.4% base increase to Medicare payments in 2027, according to a CMS proposed rule published July 7. A 3.2% increase to the market basket would be reduced by 0.8% due to the mandatory economywide productivity adjustment. The numbers could change moderately when the final rule…

Garrett Hardin popularized the idea of a tragedy of the commons in a 1968 Science essay carrying that title.a It describes a situation in which individuals with unlimited access to a public resource act in their own self-interest and ultimately deplete it. Hardin used grazing on a public pasture to make his point. Imagine a…

Two massive segments of the healthcare ecosystem operations — nonprofit health systems and nonprofit health insurance companies — have struggled to achieve operations at the national level. These organizations consistently find it difficult and time-consuming to merge, and as a consequence, neither has achieved national scale. This situation compromises nonprofits’ capacity to generate operating economies and create value for their customers.…

The past decade has seen hospital finances whipsawed by a global pandemic, a record-setting multi-hundred-billion-dollar cyberattack, a more than 20-year record surge in labor costs and a trillion-dollar cut in federal Medicaid spending. Not surprisingly, hospital credit has deteriorated. Hospital finances cumulative rating activity, quarterly trend Yet hospital capital spending is soaring.a Capital spending for…

For decades, our nation’s health systems have pursued a strategy of what I call “controlled deceleration,” which acknowledges innovation while slowing it to a pace that has preserved existing power structures. That strategy no longer works. The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), in combination with other powerful forces, is bringing high-velocity…

Hospital financial performance remained uneven in the second quarter as policy changes and broader economic pressures affected the not-for-profit (NFP) and for-profit segments. In the NFP sector, median health system operating margin ticked upward to 0.4% year-to-date (YTD) through May, according to monthly data from Strata Decision Technology. But the metric wasn’t quite as steady…

Healthcare real estate is often an overlooked driver of financial performance. Download this white paper to explore the proven framework behind $78 million in savings and learn how to optimize your real estate portfolio for greater financial and operational impact.

Nick Hut discusses the Medicare OPPS Proposed Rule with Kathy Stull. Erika Grotto talks with Michael Driscoll of Fidelity Investments about cost saving strategies for employers and with Tracy Monson from Onbe about modernizing the patient financial experience.

With drug and supply costs continuing to strain margins, hospitals are searching for strategic approaches to mitigate the impact. Drug costs are surging, driven by specialty drugs ranging from GLP-1 products to cell and gene therapies. Citing industry data, Emad Rizk, MD, who recently moved into the top position with Premier Inc., pointed to pharmaceutical…

This self-assessment helps healthcare finance and IT leaders quickly identify how vulnerable their organization is to telecom overspending, a common but often unmanaged expense driven by billing errors, unused services, and poor visibility.