As we continue to move out of the pandemic, Chris Bergman, vice president and CFO of Dayton Children's Hospital, is dedicating much of his time and effort to tackling the behavioral health crisis among kids in the new year.
"That really was growing rapidly before COVID, and COVID just made it explode exponentially in terms of the need," Mr. Bergman told Becker's. "Like most children's hospitals, [behavioral health] was not a major part of your business."
In an effort to expand, Mr. Bergman said Dayton Children's is adding more capacity on the inpatient side, while also expanding outpatient reach: "We're in year two of that. We're building a brand new $100 million dollar inpatient facility, and then also expanding our outpatient into our communities and trying to get sourcing out into our outpatient communities."
When children get admitted for behavioral health, Mr. Bergman said they don't always return home well, like if they were to break an arm and have it completely heal.
"We need to build some day centers where parents drop their kids off and spend a day, and it may be a three-week course, four-week course, or however long it takes that you need help afterward. So we're building things like that," he said.
Underserved children and those who don't have primary care service access is another top priority for Dayton Children's.
"We say that sometimes a person's level of care is determined less by their genetic code and more by their ZIP code," Mr. Bergman said.
However, the ongoing challenge remains finding the funding to bridge these types of gaps.
"Behavioral health is a huge challenge because I don't have enough resources yet," Mr. Bergman said. "I've got to build capacity to take care of these kids, but it's way underfunded. When we look at our business, it's like one of our lowest margin services, but it's the one that needs to grow the most. It needs to probably double in size, but it's the lowest margin of all the things we do."
Mr. Bergman said running sharp operations and working closely with payers is key to getting money.
"The state of Ohio has done a really nice job to try to put some money into behavioral health, a lot of it on the pediatric side," he said. "So, they're doing their job and the payers are attuned to it because I think they're hearing the same thing, particularly from their employers that then cover."
To avoid losing money fast, Mr. Bergman also encourages other CFOs to keep a tight revenue cycle: "I always say to my CFO peers, you just have to just put the money into that, do what you need to do to keep it really sharp. It's easy to only collect 95% where you're supposed to and that 5% is a really big number at that point in time. So it's just that constant challenge."
Moving forward, Mr. Bergman wants people to realize that health is wealth, especially as patients age out of pediatric care.
"So once a child ages out, let's say like they get to 19, 20, nobody realizes the impact of what we do for them now, their healthcare needs into the future," he said. "Our whole healthcare system is built around taking care of sick people, and so they don't measure that. Well, if I kept them healthier, and did the right things to get them healthier, that would save you so much money for when they're age 20 to 80."