___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Finance
■ Case mix
■ Contract reimbursement rates
■ Labor drivers- worked hours per unit of service
■ Medical supply cost per case
■ Billing collection lags- days spent in accounts receivable
By focusing on drivers instead of just flat figures, forecasts update automatically and show CFOs what truly drives their numbers. Rolling forecasts- updated monthly, not just yearly- give leaders a clearer picture of long-term impacts while they address short-term issues. This approach leads to smarter, more efficient scenario-building, letting leaders look beyond basic cause and effect.
Imagine a rival opening a new facility in your service area. Finance teams can set assumptions about how this might impact the bottom line, and automated data analysis can quickly run scenario models to reveal the potential effects.
Insight to action
With greater financial visibility, CFOs and finance leaders are more empowered to decide:
■ Which markets to expand into
■ Who to partner with
■ Which services and systems should be consolidated
■ Which competing capital requests get funded- on forecasting, rather than persuasiveness
■ How to plan staffing across departments
■ How to approach agency recruitment
■ Where to increase capacity in line with demand, for example specific facilities requiring more ambulatory support than others
With clearer, more insightful reporting, executives have greater confidence when talking with the board. They can support decisions with concrete figures, highlight what is driving facility variance, and help board conversations move faster. According to Deloitte, 73 percent of health system and plan finance leaders say they are expected to be involved in enterprise decision-making regularly, but only 49 percent feel they are‘ well equipped’ to support it. This 24-point gap is significant, and smarter forecasting models plus greater data visibility can help close it.
A unified financial picture
Greater financial visibility in healthcare means building one clear picture of what is happening across every facility. Instead of piling on more reports, leaders can consolidate and refine information from different sources to gain live financial insights- with updates frequent enough to take timely action.
With this visibility, finance leads can make faster, better-supported decisions about how to allocate resources, based on reliable figures.
This way, resources and capital flow to the facilities that need them most, and finance leads keep decision-making moving with board-ready, defensible reports. It’ s a sustainable approach for today’ s fast-paced industry and it’ s achievable now, not years down the line. ■
Gurpreet Chaggar www. prophix. com
Gurpreet Chaggar is an associate product marketing manager at Prophix, a global leader in financial performance management. She joined the company in 2019 as an implementation consultant, where she developed a deep understanding of Prophix’ s solutions and the impact Prophix has on helping clients optimize business outcomes
americanhealthcareleader. com 21