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Editor's Picks
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Marketers are learning to speak language only a CFO could love
This article comes from my colleague Gienna Shaw, who included it in her weekly marketing E-zine. It's a well-written piece about the increasing accountability marketing executives face from their CFOs. It's not specifically about healthcare, but I wonder what you CFOs in healthcare have done in recent years to track results from the marketing program. Have you faced much pushback? Is it true that ROI for marketing expenditures is nearly impossible to determine? I'd be interested in hearing from you about what your department is doing to demand more data about the effectiveness of your hospital or physician practice's marketing expenditures. [Read More]
Emory's expensive hospital relocation decision
Imagine having to do this cost-benefit analysis: Emory University is trying to decide whether to move its hospital, research facilities and outpatient clinic to its satellite campus-an area that will require the demolition and relocation of student housing and athletic facilities built just five years ago at a cost of $63 million. The idea is to set up the medical facilities for a 50-100-year run at a location that is more accessible to traffic. The school's original plan to consolidate its medical facilities at the current hospital site would cost $2 billion. [Read More]
New Jersey court ruling threatens state's surgery centers
It's just New Jersey, but is this wrangling over the legality of surgery centers amount to trying to cram an escaped Genie back into his bottle? There are 200 operating in the state already, and though hospitals feel that surgery centers siphon the best-paying revenue away from them (and they probably do), in most other states, hospitals are either actively joining forces with their physicians to operate them or are starting them on their own with employed physicians. I know that self-referral is a slippery slope, but hasn't New Jersey already slid down that slope? [Read More]
Losing money, hospital withdraws from Medi-Cal program
Simi Valley Hospital has become the 16th hospital in the state of California to withdraw from the state's version of Medicaid, saying it lost $2.5 million last year treating Medi-Cal patients. Even though 8 percent to 10 percent of the hospital's patient load is made up of such patients, that's the kind of loss you can't make up on volume, I suppose. Although the hospital will still treat such patients in emergency situations, as required by law, patients will be transferred to other hospitals. [Read More]
Happy Holidays
From all of us at HealthLeaders Media, have a happy and safe holiday. HealthLeaders Media Finance will not publish next week, but will be back December 31. |
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Finance Forum
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Why health system CEOs should support single payer
Understandably, hospital and health system execs have not supported the single payer approach to healthcare reform. This is because single payer has been defined by most policy analysts and the media as a government-run program, with the government calling all the shots. "Single payer" is often seen as a close relative of socialized medicine. In sharp contrast, says Bob Sigmond, single payer is a different idea that Walter McNerney and others promoted in the 1960s. We saw single payer as the most effective way to keep government from being excessively involved in day-to-day patient care decisions, even as government necessarily had to become more involved in the financing of that care. [Read More] |
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Finance Headlines
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Milwaukee's Synergy Health has two suitors
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel - December 12, 2007
Bank partners with vendor in joint healthcare play
Healthcare Finance News - December 11, 2007
How healthy is your medical credit score?
Dallas Morning News - December 12, 2007
Cardiac Care plan sparks turf war in North Carolina
Raleigh News & Observer - December 8, 2007
Hospitals' charity care draws scrutiny
Cleveland Plain Dealer - December 9, 2007
Upcoming Events
HealthLeaders Media News - December 17, 2007 | |
| From HealthLeaders Magazine |
Board on the Floor
 Quality isn't just for the docs anymore. A growing emphasis on hospital quality is sparking a new governance model that requires trustees to monitor more than just the bottom line. Is your board ready to take charge? [Read More]
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Money Talk
A look at one hospital's struggles to improve
 Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, LA
Rating: Baa3
Outlook: Negative
Affected Debt: $98.8 million
Agency: Moody's Investors Service
Remarks: ODowngraded from Baa2 and retained negative outlook because of sizable 2006 operating losses and continuation of those losses to a higher than expected degree in the first eight months of 2007. [Read More] | |
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Audio Feature
Top Leadership Teams '07: HealthLeaders Media hosted several interesting panels at its annual Top Leadership Teams in Healthcare conference and awards event back in October. I happened to host the financial strategy panel, which featured four CEO-CFO tandems discussing challenges and solutions they've experienced at their hospital or hospital system. In this audio feature, Brad King, CFO at Oregon Health & Science University, talks about how the hospital portion of the university, at that time considered a "financial anchor," faced potential closure 15 years ago and an unlevel competitive playing field with insurers. | |
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