Operations Management

Hospital finances are on the upswing, but the toll of the Change Healthcare outage is yet to be seen

Note: The second section of this article was updated where noted with a new comment from Fitch Ratings. There is reason to be optimistic about the state of hospital finances, but the impact of the Change Healthcare cyberattack has added uncertainty to the forecasts. Financial metrics for the first two months of 2024 continued to…

Nick Hut March 28, 2024

The FY24 HHS budget covers key programs for rural hospitals while tightening spending in some areas

The newly passed budget covering HHS during the remainder of FY24 contains notable provisions for healthcare providers. The roughly $117 billion departmental budget for the next six months was set in an appropriations bill that was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden within hours of the March 22 expiration of funding for…

Nick Hut March 25, 2024

Hospitals warrant an extra boost in their Medicare payment rate next year, MedPAC says

Hospitals will get a more favorable Medicare payment increase in FY25 if Congress follows the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). In its semiannual report to Congress, MedPAC recommended a 1.5% bump on top of what otherwise would be provided according to statute. That would mean an estimated increase of about 4.5% for…

Nick Hut March 22, 2024

Improve Patient Refunds With A Simplified B2C Payments Solution

Download this eBook to get insights into patient refunds and a solution to streamline the process for the provider while improving the patient financial experience.

HFMA March 20, 2024

Federal funding legislation would address Medicaid DSH cuts, physician payments and more

March 8 update The Senate passed the appropriations bill by a 75-22 vote, getting it to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign hours before funding for some federal departments would have expired and a big cut to Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments would have begun. Attention now turns to HHS and other…

Nick Hut March 6, 2024

How to achieve savings by reengineering nonclinical healthcare spending

With healthcare margins under constant and growing pressure, hospital and health system finance leaders must continue to explore all avenues for cost savings across their organization. Supply chain savings efforts have traditionally been focused on clinical spending and on contracts accessed via group purchasing organization (GPO) relationships. By looking to nonclinical spending on administrative and…

Keith Noll February 29, 2024

Site-neutral payment has backing in healthcare policy circles, but its efficacy as a cost restraint is unclear

The concept of site-neutral payment continues to receive support from members of Congress and healthcare policy analysts, as demonstrated during a recent hearing. The Jan. 31 hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee was intended, in part, to promote pending legislation that would strengthen price transparency and implement other policies designed to…

Nick Hut February 15, 2024

Hospitals reached steadier ground financially as they moved into 2024

Hospitals came into 2024 with some financial momentum, even as expenses continued to rise and pivotal decisions loomed. The year-to-date median hospital operating margin reached 2.3% in December, the high mark for 2023 and the 10th consecutive month in which margins were positive, according to monthly data from Syntellis Performance Solutions, part of Strata Decision…

Nick Hut February 12, 2024

A ‘magic equation’ to unlock OR revenue

This whitepaper offers healthcare leaders a roadmap to identify operating room (OR) inefficiencies and address them using a "magic equation" of artificial intelligence, automation and change management.

HFMA January 31, 2024

Leveraging the supply chain for cost reduction

Learn from seven healthcare finance executives about the different strategies used to help reduce their hospital's costs using technology, transparency and automation in this roundtable.

HFMA January 30, 2024
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