Finance & Revenue Cycle Issues
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Instead, he advocates that hospital CFOs use rolling forecasts instead of
using annual budgets alone. Similar to how Standard & Poor's and other
agencies benchmark healthcare financial performance 12 months out, hospitals can compile more frequent 30-, 60- and 90-day rolling forecasts to
compare previous months' trends to the most up-to-date data. Now, more
than ever, hospital CFOs can take advantage of advanced technologies to
improve financial modeling, and more frequent benchmarking can allow
for more accurate snapshots.
the operational costs that come afterward. For example, if a hospital acquires a physician practice, the total costs of that transaction will far exceed
the acquisition price tag.
7. CFOs may have too narrow of a focus with operational
management. Occasionally, CFOs may become too fixated on the obvious costs and investments of projects or acquisitions, and they may ignore
He recommends CFOs and other financial leaders include investments in
non-capital-related projects and utilize external operations benchmarks. n
"If there is no physician billing process, you have to build one, and it's
different than the hospital side," Mr. Fenstermaker says. "Hospital CFOs
are often surprised — and should not be — by the cost of integration
strategies."
