Hospital CFOs are required to have a certain skill set as they face today's healthcare challenges.
Regarding these challenges and navigating them, finance chiefs from hospitals and health systems shared the following pieces of advice with Becker's Hospital Review over the last year.
1. Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare CFO Michael McAnder shared his thoughts on the unique challenges health system CFOs face. "Obviously, the cost of healthcare in our country is a huge issue. If you're not managing your expenses, your bottom line is going to go away because revenues are going down," he said. "Each year, our managed care, our good-paying volume, goes down. Medicare and Medicaid, the lower-paying volume, is increasing. At some point, you will have an intersection. So that's why you really have to continue to be getting costs out of the system."
2. Mr. McAnder also shared his advice for other hospital CFOs. "I think what I'd say is try and look for the long-term play," he said. "You can't manage this business on a day-to-day basis. You have to have a clear direction and stick with it."
3. JoAnn Kunkel, CFO of Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health, offered her views on the essential hospital and health system CFOs need in today's healthcare landscape.
"Everyone likes to joke around about the traditional CFO who sits in their office with their green shade, a pocket protector that says no to everything," she said. "But it is such a different position today. … It's a position that requires strategic thinking, creative decision-making and the ability to look past just debits and credits."
4. Ms. Kunkel also shared her thoughts on the benefits of being part of a team. "It's important to remember you are only as good as your team. … Sometimes I think when you get into these leadership roles you can forget that. You always want to be inclusive, give credit to the work and the team and the efforts that help make you successful in your role," she said.
5. Amid industry discussion about rising healthcare costs, Marion (Ind.) General Hospital CFO Jeff Wakefield shared his views on the meaning of "cost."
"My opinion is that true healthcare cost is determined by what providers have to pay in the everyday course of operating," he said. "We must negotiate smartly with vendors when purchasing things like major equipment and medical supplies."
6. Dennis Dahlen, CFO of the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, shared his thoughts on the challenges hospital and health system CFOs faced in 2018.
"In these past two years, we've seen a lot of hospital mergers, and we've just heard about the finalization of the Aetna/CVS merger, so now we've got vertical integration, nontraditional partnerships," he said. "That's not a scale play, that's a disruption play. That's going to influence a lot of us. So, in addition to cost control, we have to address the shifting marketplace as well."
7. Mr. Dahlen also shared his views on operating major campuses in different regions and how Mayo's financial strategy differs by region.
"We operate today as one Mayo Clinic. I've only been here a year, and I just want to give credit to the leadership of John Noseworthy, MD. His term as CEO is up at the end of this year, but he initiated a massive integration effort over the past nine years that really took Mayo from a holding company to a single operating entity," he said. "It is paying dividends every single day for our patients, physicians and staff. But the business model across all three campuses is the same. We're focused on the complex and serious end of the care spectrum."
8. John Kurvink, vice president of corporate affairs and CFO of Brant Community Healthcare System in Brantford, Canada, discussed how hospital executives and physicians can ensure they're aligned around the same strategic goals.
"You have to walk a mile in the doctor's shoes to truly understand their pain points and motivations. You also need to provide them with robust, high-quality data. Anything less is a recipe for failure," he said "Lastly, you need to involve physicians up front, in a tangible way, when setting those goals. Anything less is just paying lip service."
9. Birmingham, Ala.-based UAB Health System CFO Dawn Bulgarella shared the most difficult aspect of her job.
"Hands down, the most difficult aspect of my job is managing email communication," she said. "We're all accessible now 24/7, 365 days a year, and this means easy access by colleagues, staff, vendors, recruits, family and friends. On the positive side, this helps keep us informed and allows us to inform others about relevant activity, news, concerns, etc. Unfortunately, this often leads to a constantly overflowing email inbox. In order to be an effective communicator, you've got to come up with an email management strategy that works for you and be prepared to modify as necessary."
10. Douglas Watson, CFO of San Francisco-based Dignity Health's Arizona service area, shared his thoughts on guiding other CFOs.
"With the new [CFO] skill set needed for the future, you have to think about their career. How do we give a new CFO or a director of finance aspiring to be a CFO exposure to operational, technology and management roles and experience? How do we give them a chance to work on an innovation project and not just be the person crunching numbers supporting it? You have to make time to help them grow into the type CFO we need in the future," he said.
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