Why pursue an HFMA Certification?

HFMA Members,

• Have you been eyeing one of the many Healthcare Financial Management Certifications that HFMA has to offer?
• Are you pondering how to increase your effectiveness in your current role?
• Or researching your next finance/revenue cycle career move and wondering how you will gain the skills needed to be successful?

The answer to all these questions is – ‘Pursue an HFMA certification!’

I can attest firsthand to the positive impact an HFMA certification can have on your career – and hope to convince you to pursue a certification in the near future!

Introduction:

My name is Jackie Lucas, I’ve been a member of HFMA for over 6 years. Currently, I serve as Regional Performance Management Director for Revenue Excellence at one of the largest non-profit healthcare systems in the nation. Our team of internal Revenue Cycle Performance Management Consultants helps drive improvement in net patient revenue to the bottom line for over 90 hospitals, physician group practices, and long-term care facilities.

Before my current role, I worked at pediatric and adult hospital systems in clinical operations and finance. I joined HFMA shortly after starting my role as Finance Director with one of the regional non-profit health systems in Columbus, OH. I chose to leverage HFMA online education and Central Ohio HFMA Chapter Conferences to enhance my understanding of Healthcare Financial Management while I was a Finance Director.

HFMA Certification and Benefit (Testimonial):

When I decided to pursue the Director of Performance Management role within the Revenue Cycle space, it was a stretch role for me. In my previous roles, I had some exposure to patient access and mid-revenue cycle functions. This new role would require me to quickly build on my existing revenue cycle knowledge in order to be successful. I needed a way to quickly supplement my existing knowledge with 1) those specific areas I was not familiar with and 2) a comprehensive understanding of the revenue cycle in its entirety.

I turned to my HFMA membership and the Certified Revenue Cycle Representative certification to gain the required knowledge and demonstrate to my leadership that I was serious about closing any subject matter expertise gaps I had. I invested intense study time over two weeks to prepare for and ultimately obtain the CRCR certification.

The CRCR Certification provided countless benefits including:

• Comprehensive Understanding of the Revenue Cycle and it’s functions
• Detailed and specific subject matter on the back-end/PFS functions (which I was previously unfamiliar with)
• Introduction to Key Performance Indicators for the Revenue Cycle
• Provides a roadmap for setting attainable goals within the Revenue Cycle

I found so much benefit in the CRCR course, that I went on to study and pass my second certification – the Certified Healthcare Financial Professional (CHFP). Using the self-study guide and having the opportunity to revisit the content has been useful for me to accelerate my learning.

I highly recommend investing the time and effort to pursue an HFMA certification. I’m nearly 18-months into my role and attribute part of my success and confidence to the HFMA Certified Revenue Cycle Representative and Certified Healthcare Financial Professional Certifications.

For more information on available certification, please visit: HFMA.org – Certifications

Thank you,

Jackie Lucas
 Regional Director, Revenue Cycle Performance Management
 Trinity Health
[email protected]