While increasing revenue is a top goal for 2024, improving the patient experience is a close second — specially for large health systems: HFMA poll
In a recently conducted survey, 70% of 92 respondents said increasing revenue is a top priority in 2024 followed by improving the patient experience (60%) and reducing costs (55%). Review other key findings in this research report.
Integrated delivery: A 45-year case study of one IDN’s successful evolution
Over the past 50 years, the integrated delivery network (IDN) model has evolved to become widely accepted among health system leaders as an effective means for controlling costs, improving quality through better coordinated care and achieving financial returns.a Yet an important question confronts any healthcare organization that wants to pursue an IDN strategy today: What…
Healthcare Blame Game: Bloomberg Philanthropies puts $250 million into educating new healthcare workers while Patient Rights Advocate spends on spreading misinformation
Chad Mulvany, vice president of federal policy for the California Hospital Association and former HFMA policy director, discusses Bloomberg Philanthropies $250 million investment in the future healthcare workforce, as well as what will actually move the needle on price transparency.
David Johnson: Fortune telling healthcare’s dismal future
January 1970 was a long time ago. Richard Nixon celebrated the first anniversary of his presidency. The Vietnam War was raging. The Paris Peace Accords, the Arab oil embargo, stagflation, wage and price controls, devaluation of the dollar, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Nixon’s historic trip…
Building skilled nursing relationships to improve hospital length of stay
The timely discharge of patients to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) remains a significant concern for health system leaders. There have been some signs of improvement: Just over 40% of respondents to Kaufman Hall’s 2023 State of Healthcare Performance Improvement survey indicated that inpatient average length of stay (ALOS) had decreased over the past year. But…
Private equity investing showing signs of rebound
The Federal Reserve’s plan to begin reducing interest rates in 2024 will likely unleash private equity’s pent-up demand for physician practices and other healthcare services companies. “Everybody wants to transact,” said Bret Schiller, managing director and head of healthcare in corporate client banking at J.P. Morgan. “I think that, at the first rate cut we…
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…
We all have trauma. Here’s how to take it to work in a healthy way.
Dr. Sadie Elisseou, a practicing VA physician and instructor at Harvard Medical School and Boston University School of Medicine, talks about trauma-informed healthcare in and out of the exam room.
Healthcare Blame Game: Patient Rights Advocate’s distortion of price transparency regulations and data, and the ad campaign that’s catching attention
Patient Rights Advocate (PRA) has engaged hip hop artists like Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes and Method Man in its “Power to the Patients” campaign, claiming that regulations around price transparency are not being enforced, allowing hospitals to hide their prices and “charge whatever they want.” On this episode, HFMA Policy Director Shawn Stack and Ruth Lande, vice president of hospital relations at RIP Medical Debt, discuss PRA’s misinterpretation of price transparency regulations and hospital pricing.
Susan Dentzer: Why we have reached a tipping point on pharmaceutical spending
Author Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote in a 2000 book about the phenomenon of tipping points — those moments when “critical mass, the threshold, [or] the boiling point” is reached and change occurs “not gradually but at one dramatic moment.”a One historical case in point: the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which, though building for years,…