Make the Connection, Personally and Professionally
HFMA Chairman Bob Broadway remembers the efforts an eBay seller once made to avoid having negative feedback posted to his profile.
Broadway had bought something from the seller and was dissatisfied with the transaction — and said so, using the on-line rating system established by eBay. The seller contacted Broadway almost immediately. "The seller was crushed," Broadway told attendees of HFMA's 2008 ANI: The Healthcare Finance Conference, held June 23-26 in Las Vegas. "He e-mailed me and asked, 'How could you possibly give me a negative score?' I said, 'You did something inappropriate.' He replied, 'How can I make it right? I'll give your money back. You can keep the product. I want it resolved. I'm sorry.'"
Why the strong reaction to just one negative rating? Broadway asked those in attendance. Because the seller didn't want even one unsatisfactory score posted on the Internet, where it could forever be accessed by potential buyers.
"That doesn't happen in our industry," Broadway told the crowd of healthcare finance professionals. "On eBay, successful sellers have customer satisfaction ratings of 98 percent, 99 percent, and 100 percent. That doesn't happen in our industry, either.
"What would it be like if every hospital posted information on-line about knee replacements — the number performed, the quality outcomes, and the patient satisfaction scores? What would it be like if hospitals and physicians insisted on feedback as eagerly as on-line sellers? That would be a powerful connection between providers and patients that could transform healthcare delivery."
In June, Broadway, vice president, corporate strategy for Bethesda Healthcare System in Boynton Beach, Fla., began his role as HFMA's new chairman. Throughout his year as chairman, he'll encourage members to nurture their professional and personal connections to improve the business of health care. His theme: "Making Connections."
"As healthcare financial managers, our purpose is to lead improvement in the business of caring — in our organizations and in the healthcare system as a whole," Broadway told the audience, many of whom work in provider settings. "At the heart of this leadership role is making connections. We need to connect the right people with the right information. We need to connect our knowledge of healthcare business issues with patients, employers, payers, and others who are affected by and who influence our healthcare system. And we need to enrich the personal connections that join us as a community and a society."
The Power of Connections
For healthcare financial managers, making connections doesn't always come easily, Broadway acknowledged. "Most of us in healthcare finance started out as accountants, so perhaps its natural that we get pigeon-holed as strictly 'numbers' people," Broadway said.
But today, the rise in consumerism demands that healthcare providers — including those in healthcare finance — connect with patients.
For example, consumers today are responsible for a greater share of their healthcare costs. Calls to hospital billing departments inquiring about the price of a particular procedure — and the amount the consumer can expect to pay out of pocket for the procedure — are commonplace.
"Just a few years ago, if a patient called a hospital to ask the price of a knee replacement, the only correct answer was, 'I have no idea and nobody else does, either,'" Broadway said. "Today, you can get that information from some hospitals — but not nearly enough. And — somewhat disappointing — competing organizations such as surgery and outpatient centers do a better job of this than hospitals do."
And there are other groups healthcare finance professionals must connect with, particularly if the industry is to reform the healthcare payment system, an issue that is critical to our economy. "Making connections with everyone — providers, payers, employers, and consumers — is the only way to improve our broken system," he says.
On a national level, HFMA is also making critical connections, Broadway says. For example, HFMA recently pulled together the perspectives of providers, payers, employers, and consumers to identify the ideal principles of a new payment system, and the characteristics of a system that would put those principles into operation. This week at ANI, HFMA released the first in a series of reports that will collectively address building a new payment system, Healthcare Payment Reform: From Principles to Action. The report was the result of significant input from representatives of a variety of key stakeholders — consumers, providers, payers, and employers — who took time to contribute to this critical topic.
"Connecting these diverse groups around principles of a better payment system is a significant achievement, Broadway said, adding, "I ask you to use your connections to help us carry this work forward."
Connections that Make a Difference
Broadway posed several questions to the crowd at Tuesday morning's presentation:
How many of you check your work e-mail at home in the evening?
How many of you check e-mail while you're traveling?
How many of you read e-mail when you're stopped at a red light?
How many of you write e-mail when you're stopped at a red light?
And, "How many of you are sneaking a look at your e-mail right now," Broadway asked, as the audience laughed.
"Folks, this is a sure sign that we are all beyond our capacity," he says. "We simply do not have enough time to meet our professional obligations, not to mention have time with our times."
It is during times when healthcare finance professionals are at capacity that HFMA can help them the most, he said. "We make the connection between critical information and you — information that will help you do a better job and advance your career," he says. "That is why I am so passionate about HFMA. Through its publications, its conferences, its web site, its Forums, HFMA connects its members with the strategies, tools, and support you need."
But perhaps the most important connections we can make are with each other, he says.
During his speech, Broadway shared the personal connections that have touched his life.
As a child, Broadway didn't dream of becoming a hospital executive. Ask him about his childhood and he'll tell you he grew up barefoot on the bayous and beaches of Florida in the town of Fort Walton Beach, a town with fewer than 20,000 people.
There were times when he wondered if a college education was within his reach, given his family's modest income level. But his grandmother had other ideas. "She said — just like this — 'You will go to college, and I'll help you in every way possible,'" he remembers. "It certainly was not clear to me how that would happen. But when you have a grandmother pushing you to achieve goals you didn't know you could achieve, and a mother always keeping the faith, you can achieve anything."
Broadway learned the value of making connections early in his career when, at the age of 25, he became CFO of a 320-bed hospital, Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. Suddenly, more than 100 people reported to Broadway; until that point, he had supervised only three people in his young career. Even more daunting, the hospital was at the point of financial collapse.
Broadway joined the Florida HFMA chapter to learn more about the healthcare finance industry. "Very quickly, a member of the chapter board, Clyde Latchem — I'll never forget him — made a very important connection with me. He got me involved in the program committee and got me on the board," Broadway remembers. "He showed me that the value of HFMA rises sharply the more involved that you are with the Association."
One year later, under Broadway's leadership, the hospital's financial picture improved, in part due to the knowledge and connections he'd gained as a member of HFMA.
His HFMA connections perhaps never felt more personal to Broadway than when his hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla. — located about two miles from the Atlantic Ocean — was struck by a hurricane a few years ago. "At the height of the storm, we had leaks everywhere. Winds were over 100 miles per hour, we had staffing shortages, and I had been up all night," he remembers. "We were short a lot of things — except hope."
Thanks to emergency power, the Internet was the hospital's link to the outside world. Broadway will never forget opening his e-mail to find messages from friends he's made through HFMA, letting him know they cared about him — and asking what they could do to help.
"I probably re-read those messages a hundred times," he said. "These were not family members thinking about me. They were professional colleagues who knew, without being told, the kinds of challenges I faced in that situation. This was a time when I truly appreciated HFMA and my connections in a way I never had before."
You're Not Alone
Anyone responsible for healthcare finance in this day and age occasionally has dark days when they wonder how they are going to weather the storm, Broadway told the audience. "That's when I want you to remember the power of connections — the connections you have with your friends and colleagues in our important work of improving the business of health care," he said.
Broadway's presentation was preceded by remarks from Mary Beth Briscoe, FHFMA, CPA, 2007-08 Chairman. Her theme was "Making a Difference," and throughout her term as Chairman, she was touched by the examples members shared with her of their efforts to make a difference in their organizations and their communities.
"My year as HFMA Chairman has been an enormous blessing and a humbling opportunity," she says. "I have been forever changed by meeting and serving thousands of caring professionals who are committed to nurturing and improving the lives of others."