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20 CFO / FINANCE 20 Financial Benchmarks for Hospital Executives By Ayla Ellison H ere are 20 benchmarks related to one of the most important day-to-day areas hospital executives oversee — finance. Source: Moody's Investors Service, "U.S. Not- for-Profit Hospital 2015 Medians" report, Sep- tember 2016. The medians are based on an analysis of audited 2015 financial statements for 340 freestanding hospitals, single-state health systems and multi-state health systems, representing 81 percent of all Moody's rat- ed healthcare entities. Children's hospitals, hospitals for which five years of data are not available and certain specialty hospitals were not eligible for inclusion in the me- dians. 1. Maintained bed occupancy: 64.3 percent 2. Operating margin: 3.4 percent 3. Excess margin: 6.1 percent 4. Operating cash flow margin: 10.3 percent 5. Return on assets: 4.8 percent 6. ree-year operating revenue CAGR: 5.8 percent 7. ree-year operating expense CAGR: 5.5 percent 8. Annual operating revenue growth rate: 7.5 percent 9. Annual operating expense growth rate: 6.6 percent 10. Total debt-to-capitalization: 33.7 percent 11. Current ratio: 2.0x 12. Cushion ratio: 20.6x 13. Annual debt service coverage: 5.2x 14. Maximum annual debt service coverage: 4.8x 15. Debt-to-cash flow: 2.7x 16. Capital spending ratio: 1.1x 17. Cash on hand: 211.8 days 18. Accounts receivable: 48.4 days 19. Average payment period: 64.3 days 20. Average age of plant: 11 years n 20% of Physician Respondents are Familiar with MACRA: 5 Survey Takeaways By Mackenzie Bean O nly 20 percent of physicians said they were somewhat or very familiar with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reau- thorization Act, according to a new survey conducted by Merritt Hawkins on behalf of The Physicians Foundation. The survey polled 17,236 physicians from across the nation on topics like professional morale, practice patterns and career plans. Here are five things to know. 1. Fourteen percent of respondents said they were somewhat familiar with MACRA and 5.9 percent said they were very fa- miliar. 2. About 33.4 percent of respondents said they were very un- familiar with MACRA, 22.9 percent said they were somewhat familiar and 23.8 percent said they were neither familiar or un- familiar with the policy. 3. Sixty-one percent of female physicians said they were very or somewhat unfamiliar with MACRA, compared to 53.6 per- cent of male physicians. 4. More physicians 45 years or older were very or somewhat familiar with MACRA (22.4 percent) than physicians 45 years or younger (15.5 percent). 5. Practice owners exhibited higher familiarity with MACRA (18.5 percent) than employed physicians (15.5 percent). n Parkland Memorial Hospital To Lay Off 108 Amid Budget Cuts By Ayla Ellison P arkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas will lay off 108 employees and eliminate 200 more unfilled jobs, according to The Dallas Morning News. The cuts affect about 2.4 percent of Parkland's workforce, and about 87 percent of the cutbacks involve non-clinical workers, hospital officials told The Dallas Morning News. The cuts come as the hospital faces a significant reduction in federal reimbursement in the com- ing fiscal year. Parkland expects a $40 million loss next year from Medicare, Medicaid and programs for the uninsured. The hospital will see Medicaid payments shrink significantly, as Texas is one of the states that chose not to expand Medicaid un- der the Affordable Care Act. Parkland Memorial will also receive less property tax revenue next year, as Dallas County Commis- sioners recently voted to reduce the amount area property owners pay per $100 valuation for Park- land Memorial, according to the report. Despite its financial troubles, Parkland Memori- al's board unanimously approved a $1.5 billion budget for 2017. Hospital officials predict Park- land will have a $52 million budget shortfall in the coming year. n