One expert shares five ways CFOs at prominent organizations across the country are maintaining financial stability in 2023.
CEOs say that 2023 is all about embracing the current reality and deciding maybe it’s not as bad as it could be. But now is not the time to ease up on strategy.
"As we look at 2023, we find that operating performance is still well below pre-pandemic levels. However, it is not quite as bad as it was in 2022 when the Omicron surge happened," Erik Swanson, senior vice president of data and analytics at Kaufman Hall, recently told HealthLeaders.
While this could be seen as good news, CFOs know they need to stay ahead of the curve and keep preparing for the next big financial hurdle.
“There is no single strategy [to maintaining financial stability]. It is highly multifaceted, and all levers must be pulled,” Swanson said. But there are five trends that Swanson says CFOs are deploying to ensure they remain financially stable:
Workforce optimization
When we talk about labor expenses and managing the workforce, a lot of organizations are looking at how they can think about workforce optimization by employing data and analytics in a more useful way to understand the appropriate complement of staff and workforce that they’d need to deliver care in the appropriate ways and in the most economical fashion.
Reducing the reliance on contract labor is another lever to pull. Some organizations are re-examining their float pool size or perhaps even creating their own internal staffing agency for some of those large systems. Some are considering recruitment retainment and those pipelines for ensuring that talent is coming in.
Some organizations are partnering closely with local nursing schools, in some cases offering tuition assistance or even full tuition assistance to build a pool of candidates to address some of the labor shortages. That strategy will take a few years, but it’s useful. It's also critical to create an environment where everyone works to the top of their license and top of their ability across the organization.
Supply chain management
What we’re seeing on the non-labor side is around more effective supply chain management by building scale and leveraging that to get preferred rates with vendors and in many cases, reducing the amount of variation in suppliers.
Payer negotiations
On the revenue side, negotiating with payers as those opportunities arise and negotiating in a way such that those dollars are focused on where the patient populations will be, versus where they have historically been, is important.
Value-based care models
Some organizations are exploring where to move on as they move more towards a value-based care model. Organizations that had greater value-based care models tended to outperform those that did not during the pandemic.
Reexamining the future of care delivery
Leaders also need to think strategically about what care looks like. What does care delivery in the future look like? And making sure that they are positioning themselves for the future, while managing their day-to-day, but not losing sight of what that future may hold.
Amanda Norris is the Director of Content for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
CFOs know they need to stay ahead of the curve and keep preparing for the next big financial hurdle.
Erik Swanson, senior vice president of data and analytics at Kaufman Hall, shares five strategies CFOs are deploying to ensure they remain financially stable.