A new way to measure nursing productivity: Total labor cost per admission
Since the early 1980s, U.S. hospitals have used a standard method to measure nursing productivity. In recent years, however, the industry has witnessed significant changes in the workplace and the way hospitals are reimbursed, including a shift toward pay-for-performance and value-based care. And at the same time, patient and caregiver expectations have increased substantially amid…
Healthcare innovators run the gauntlet at HFMA’s Western Region Symposium
When a general session fell through during the planning process for the HFMA Western Region Symposium in Las Vegas in January, a Shark Tank-inspired event not only filled the empty slot but also ended up drawing a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 1,000 attendees. Three lesser-known healthcare innovation companies, with solutions that had the potential to…
Ken Perez: Potential downsides of healthcare’s growing dependence on AI
In a recent guest essay for The New York Times, Stanford University senior Theo Baker says, “AI is everything. …. Nearly all of higher education has been overtaken by this technology.”a Healthcare is also being overtaken by AI. Hospitals and health systems are rapidly adopting AI to streamline operations and improve clinical decision-making. According to…
Jill Geisler: How to be an organized leader —and avoid wasting your team’s time
Highly regarded leaders are often described in near-heroic terms: visionary, courageous, brilliant, charismatic. Let me add one attribute that’s far less sexy but nonetheless important: organized. Leaders who have a handle on their priorities, their schedule and their plans make life easier for those around them. They require less administrative maintenance and staff accommodation. They…
HFMA announces the 2026 winners of its premier awards
Two long-time HFMA members, David Williams and Dennis Dahlen, are recipients of the Association’s highest honors for 2026. David Williams honored for service to HFMA and healthcare finance HFMA presented David Williams with the 2026 Frederick C. Morgan Individual Achievement Award on April 27 at its Leadership Summit in Austin, Texas. “Receiving the 2026 Frederick C. Morgan Achievement…
David Johnson: How synthetic scaling can help healthcare nonprofits achieve national scale
Two massive segments of the healthcare ecosystem operations — nonprofit health systems and nonprofit health insurance companies — have struggled to achieve operations at the national level. These organizations consistently find it difficult and time-consuming to merge, and as a consequence, neither has achieved national scale. This situation compromises nonprofits’ capacity to generate operating economies and create value for their customers.…
How hospitals can prepare for heightened 340B oversight
Momentous change may be looming for the 340B Drug Pricing Program, currently managed by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA). An ongoing debate regarding the program’s effectiveness reflects broad concerns regarding transparency, oversight and program integrity. At the center of the debate are questions about implementation of HRSA’s 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program. Although…
Is this the last year of peak hospital growth?
Recovery for inpatient acute care providers has been promising in recent years, but new headwinds are raising concerns that 2026 could mark the peak of the recent hospital rebound. Whether measured by margins or market expansion, the ride may soon get bumpier. “[Going forward] I don’t think we’re ever going to get back into the…
Matthew Cox: Why we need mentors
One question I think about most as a healthcare finance leader is whether we are preparing people for tomorrow’s challenges. Healthcare finance is not the profession it was a decade or even five years ago. We’re navigating changes in payment, technology and workforce dynamics amid affordability pressures and rising performance expectations. Career paths are becoming…
Health system capital planning: Not for the faint of heart
The past decade has seen hospital finances whipsawed by a global pandemic, a record-setting multi-hundred-billion-dollar cyberattack, a more than 20-year record surge in labor costs and a trillion-dollar cut in federal Medicaid spending. Not surprisingly, hospital credit has deteriorated. Hospital finances cumulative rating activity, quarterly trend Yet hospital capital spending is soaring.a Capital spending for…