38
HEALTHCARE
NEWS
38
ADVERTISINGINDEX
Note: Ad page number(s) given in parentheses
3M. 3m.com/solupreps (pg. 39)
CareCredit. carecredit.com/beckersasc / (800) 300-3046x5 (pg. 2)
Enovis. enovis.com (pg. 26)
HealthTrust. ascadvantage.com (pg. 40)
Innomed. info@innomed.net / innomed.net / (800) 548-2362 (pg. 35)
nimble solutions. nimblercm.com (pg. 20)
ProAssurance. proassurance.com / (800) 282-6242 (pg. 5)
Stryker. stryker.com/asc (pgs. 9-12)
Zimmer Biomet. zimmerbiomet.com (pg. 3)
Only 8% of CFOs still anticipate a recession
By Alexis Kayser
I
n January, 98 percent of U.S. CEOs agreed there would be a "short
and shallow" recession. Now, that anticipation is waning in the
C-suite, Fortune reported Aug. 22.
e publication analyzed a new survey of 600 U.S. C-suite leaders
from PwC. Seventeen percent of executives strongly agreed that there
is still a recession to come in the next six months — and their role
appears to influence their perspective.
Just 8 percent of CFOs expect a recession, compared with 27 percent
of chief operating officers. ey're looking at the situation through
different lenses, Wes Bricker, U.S. vice chair and trust solutions co-
leader at PwC, told Fortune.
"CFOs have spent, I would say, the better part of the COVID crisis
and beyond really anchoring scenario planning, shoring up their
balance sheet writing, and their cost structure. I think that gives
them optimism across multiple scenarios that they'll help guide the
company to financial success," Mr. Bricker said. "I think what we see
in the data is that COOs are looking at multiple scenarios around the
transformation work with a bit more caution than the chief financial
officers who feel ready to allocate capital to invest in the future."
Healthcare is considered a "recession-proof " industry by some,
Becker's Noah Schwartz wrote in July. He asked hospital CFOs if they
were concerned about a recession.
"Obviously, people's healthcare needs don't cease to exist just because
the economy is in distress," Terry Collins, CFO of Rifle, Colo.-based
Grand River Health Hospital, told Becker's. "In fact, you could argue
that healthcare needs might even increase during a recession because
of the additional stress people feel during difficult economic times."
But hospital CFOs shouldn't expect complete insulation from a
slumping economy, either, some said.
"Initially, hospitals may be recession-proof aer the defining two
quarters of decline in GDP. However, as the recession goes on, more
jobs are lost and insurance coverage is lost with those jobs," said Gene
Finley, CFO of Camden, Ala.-based J Paul Jones Hospital. "Hospitals
should see a rise in self-pay patients, and with that, a rise in bad debt." n