Financial Sustainability

Two large Catholic health systems — Bons Secours Health System and Mercy Health — initiated a merger in 2018 as a strategy for delivering more cost-effective care to underserved communities amid continued cost pressures and declining payments. Within three years, by using proactive, strategic and transparent communication as the guiding principle for their merger of equals, the combined organizations were able to far surpass the financial and integration goals they had set for the consolidation.

HFMA’s Cost Effectiveness of Health Report, sponsored by Kaufman Hall, is a monthly e-newsletter that will explore ways to ensure healthcare delivery in the United States is not only financially sustainable but also cost effective for all of its stakeholders — including health systems, physicians, health plans and patients. In this inaugural issue of the report, healthcare futurist Jeff Goldsmith shares his perspectives on the need for a focus on improving cost effectiveness of health as a societal imperative.

Editor's Note for Cost Effectiveness of Health Report.

As the likelihood of site-neutral payments increases over a range of services, hospitals and health systems must understand which services are most at risk from these changes and determine how quickly they will respond.

The August 2021 issue of the Financial Sustainability Report, sponsored by Kaufman Hall, explores the impacts of COVID-19 on hospital cost reporting and financial statements, and why a hospital’s future payment levels may depend on its due diligence around these processes today.

The three-hour virtual preview of the Annual Conference, including a look at the educational tracks, key speakers and other attractions, is available on-demand.

The July 2021 issue of the Financial Sustainability Report, sponsored by Kaufman Hall, includes an account of how one health system assessed the benefits and risk associated with moving its 340B covered-entity pharmacy enterprise to a Limited Liability Company. The issue also includes a commentary on CMS’s new Acute Hospital Care at Home program and a discussion of a new metric, equivalent net patient revenue (ENPR), which organizations can use to assess the relative value of proposed investments in alternative revenue sources.

Although the CMS Acute Hospital Care at Home program is still early in its development in the U.S., early adopters show evidence of the program’s exciting promise, including positive impacts on health outcomes, an improved patient and provider experience, reduced cost of care and overall healthcare savings.

To ensure the proper functioning of the physician enterprise, hospitals and health systems must establish a balance among three dimensions: The clinicians’ productivity, the capacity to provide patients with access to care when they need it, and he volume of existing and potential patients in the market.

Health system CFOs today should be actively guiding their organizations toward strategic investments in alternative revenue sources that can strengthen the bottom line. An effective and relatable metric for evaluating such investments is equivalent net patient revenue (ENPR).