Roughly half of all U.S. hospitals reported negative margins in 2022. HFMA reported that 2022 was the toughest in memory for hospital business operations, and S&P’s healthcare analysts don’t foresee much improvement in 2023. Some predict the industry will continue to face difficult conditions because of inflation, the continued healthcare labor shortages, endemic COVID-19, not to mention a wide array of macroeconomic challenges. As hospital executives, I encourage you to be bold during these times.
We all know how complex U.S. healthcare is. And managing a healthcare organization is much harder today than it was even just a few years ago. For CEOs, the most challenging decisions involve identifying what should be done now and what can wait. According to McKinsey & Company, CEOs are learning “stagility,” which is building a structure that is both stable and agile.
Wise investments can help ensure your organization thrives when we come out the other side. When faced with economic contractions, the natural inclination is to scale back and preserve resources, but this approach can inadvertently harm your organization – and the communities it serves. Now is the time to make bold investments that yield strong returns.
So, what do bold actions look like for providers? It requires making investments that support revenue growth. Some of those investments include:
Optimizing Your Revenue Cycle
For too long, I’ve encountered providers who consider the revenue cycle a cost center. If you think this way, I encourage you to consider your revenue cycle as a revenue generator. However, for it to generate revenue, it needs to be optimized.
Every healthcare organization’s revenue cycle is unique. Even subtle differen