How One CFO Will Grow His Hospital Responsibly in 2024

From growing responsibly to evaluating capacity, one CFO has a few financial priorities for his hospital this year.

The median calendar year-to-date operating margin index for hospitals is reflecting an ongoing improvement, however, leaders are not off the hook.

CFOs need to remain vigilant in their financial planning, and Matt Morgan, MBA, FACHE, FHFMA, CFO of Montage Health’s Community Hospital, will be doing this by growing responsibly, evaluating capacity, and focusing on performance improvement.

How will Morgan get this done? Read on to find out.

Community Hospital is part of Montage Health—a locally owned, nonprofit network of healthcare providers with more than 250 hospital beds and 28 skilled nursing beds located in Monterey County, California.

The hospital is currently growing certain service lines to better serve its community and region, Morgan says.

So, supporting that clinical growth with key decisions on infrastructure, funding, staffing, and performance monitoring will be critical to its financial success.

On top of growing responsibly, Community Hospital also plans to evaluate its capacity.

“The hospital’s occupancy rates continue to climb, and forward projections suggest continued pressure on existing capacity,” Morgan says. “As CFO, active participation in evaluating service needs, structural design, patient throughput and capital forecasts are significant efforts in 2024.”

Performance improvement is also top of mind for Morgan.

“While volume and revenue growth has been excellent these past five years, forward projections suggest that cost growth may exceed revenue growth,” he says.

This means that continued detailed evaluation of performance improvement at the hospital, medical group, urgent care, and insurance settings is paramount Morgan says. 

“Past financial success is not always indicative of future results!”