Joe Fifer: Cost effectiveness of health: Why now?
Joe Fifer says it’s time for healthcare leaders to make a choice about their role in addressing social determinants of health and outlines three options for doing so.
Ensuring your patients and staff are prepared for the next disaster
Ali Hochreiter and Lauren Knieser from Audacious Inquiry, a PointClickCare company, discuss disaster preparedness for patients outside hospital walls.
Gail Wilensky: Achieving health equity in the U.S. requires a preventive approach
Social determinants of health (SDoH) present a severe challenge for our nation by perpetuating inequities both in access to care and in the quality-of-the outcomes of care. Although interventions that address the challenges posed by SDoH are helpful throughout a person’s life, they can be most helpful if they occur early on, with a focus on enhancing early childhood education and food security.
Bruce Haupt: How the revenue cycle can help patients make healthy choices
The revenue cycle should be designed to give patients choices that help make healthcare more affordable for them, says Bruce Haupt, president and CEO of ClearBalance Healthcare. By clearly communicating those choices, organizations can promote improved health by encouraging patients to seek care they might otherwise have deferred.
How a workforce marketplace ecosystem can reduce traveler nurse dependence and stabilize a hospital’s labor cost model
High labor costs are threatening the viability of many hospitals and health systems. A workforce ecosystem approach, after Uber’s “gig worker” approach, can help ensure organizations have access to a stable, cost-effective workforce, with reduced reliance on costly alternatives such as over-reliance on trave nurse.
Healthcare News of Note: Cancer is now the top driver of large employers’ healthcare costs
Healthcare News of Note for healthcare finance professionals is a roundup of recent news articles: The No. 1 driver of healthcare costs for large employers is cancer, the gender pay gap for physicians has gotten larger, and NRC Health names the top facilities for consumer loyalty and patient experience.
Reflections on Annual Conference: Keynoters nailed it
National Chair Aaron Crane reflects on keynote presentations by Zeev Neuwirth, Kelli Harding, D.J. Vanas and Joel Selanikio at HFMA’s 2022 Annual Conference.
The metrics that matter in today’s physician enterprise
Advanced practice providers now represent about two-fifths of the physician enterprise workforce. New metrics are required to reflect this and other transformative changes within the physician enterprise.
Terri Chinn: For hospital CFOs, success comes from understanding payer expectations
Terri Chinn, CPA, a 37-year member of HFMA, and vice president, finance, at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Grand Junction, Colorado, suggests success for her organization comes from its ability promote health in its service area. She has applied her lessons learned as a leader of both payer and provider organizations to financially manage a clinically integrated network, called Monument Health, with the purpose of improving quality and access while reducing cost for its beneficiaries.
Improved access and quality of care are keys to solving the nation’s mental illness crisis
If we are to meaningfully address our nation’s crisis in mental health, we need to start by treating mental illness the same way we treat physical ailments, says Thomas Young, MD, a Board-certified physician and long-time vocal advocate for improving mental health in the United States.