Swapping Stories: How Healthcare Finance Professionals Can Be Inspirational Leaders

Everyone has a story. What’s yours?

My mission as HFMA Chair is to encourage healthcare finance professionals to find their “sweet spot” where passion meets purpose. Recognizing and harnessing the power of stories is key to the journey.

Every minute of every day, a story is being written. You have your stories. I have mine. Our patients and their families have stories of their own. These stories shape us and make us the people, leaders, and healthcare advocates we are today. The key to making a difference is leveraging those stories to connect, inspire, and influence others.

This issue of hfm tackles a pressing issue for anyone working in healthcare finance: the revenue cycle. It includes stories about how organizations from around the country have tackled issues such as coding, billing, cost reduction, and meaningful work standards for revenue cycle staff. Reading about others’ experiences, I can’t help but reflect upon on a recent experience of mine at the Mid-America Summer Institute. I asked leaders, What keeps you up at night? One after another, they shared stories about the greater cost burden on their patients and the stress it puts on their staff to provide support and assistance.

Let us not forget that a larger shift to patient financial responsibility does not necessarily mean Americans will no longer be able to afford healthcare services, but it does mean patient communication and education have become more important than ever before for our revenue cycle teams. HFMA stands with you to equip your teams and community on topics related to patient financial communications with our work on Healthcare Dollars & Sense from the consumer and industry perspectives.

More recently, HFMA partnered with the National Patient Safety Foundation to develop “Optimizing a Business Case for Safe Health Care,” a toolkit that guides collaboration between safety and finance leaders to demonstrate the value and ROI for providing safer, high-quality care. HFMA also will soon publish a study on the impact of value-based payment on the total cost of care through another collaborative effort among the Association, Leavitt Partners, and McManis Consulting, supported by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund. Collaborating with and through others, HFMA is sharing our stories to spread the impact to many.

You are not alone. HFMA stands beside you and your organizations, providing a voice, serving as the credible conveyor, and equipping you with resources to meet the ever-changing challenges of today and the legislative changes to come. These resources help us, as leaders, to meet our community in their story with compassion, confidence, and a vision for the future.

Never forget the impact one story, one conversation, or one connection can have on someone’s life. It is in sharing those stories each of us can find that place where passion meets purpose. With each story, lives change.