The financial assets of a healthcare organization can present many opportunities for investment. In order to develop a profitable investment program that avoids risky speculation, however, healthcare financial managers must fully understand the nature and risks of their organizations' investments. They must define and monitor their investment objectives, limitations, levels ...

Lessons learned over 10 years of management services organization (MSO) development can help financial managers increase their healthcare organizations' odds of success in such ventures. If administered appropriately, with a focus on managing and retaining covered lives, MSOs can be valuable vehicles for tying community physicians to organizations interested in ...

It is difficult for health information managers to maintain their career motivation in times of financial cutbacks, reforms, and changing technologies. Diminished motivation leads to poor job performance, which harms the department's productivity and the manager s job security. Revitalizing performance through improved motivation does not depend on fate. The ...

Imagineering is a philosophy that unleashes the latent potential of a company's employees. The end result is a highly motivated group of employees who will dramatically cut operating costs, improve quality, and solve the day-to-day management headaches. If employees have an "I don't give a damn" attitude, then it is ...

Henry Mintzberg, a professor of management at McGill University in Canada and at INSEAD in France, takes aim at the hype surrounding management fads and gurus and dares to suggest that the emperor has no clothes. In order to rile all who care about management and get them thinking creatively, ...

In today's rapidly changing healthcare environment, managers have begun efforts to reengineer outdated and inefficient work flow practices--something that other industries have already been doing for years. However, for several key reasons, successful reengineering efforts in healthcare are more difficult than in other industries. Nevertheless, these difficulties can be overcome ...

Most healthcare organizations have an audit committee of the governing board, or a finance committee, that fulfills the audit oversight function. Financial managers play a key role in shaping the content, agency, and operation of the audit committee. The findings of a recent research study conducted by Arthur Anderson & ...

Cost analysis is inherently one of the most tedious tasks falling on the shoulders of any manager. In today's world, whether in a service business such as radiology or medicine or in a product line such as car manufacturing, accurate cost analysis is critical to all aspects of management: marketing, ...

Management by intimidation is not healthy, either for its victims or an organization. Intimidation is the style some managers use to keep potential competitors at bay, reminding them who holds the power. Intimidation creates fear within an organization and arouses a need for self-protection among its employees. Unfortunately, management styles ...

Cost accounting is the most basic element of the laboratory's financial management structure. Historically, cost accounting in the nonmedical world referred to accumulating and assigning costs to units of production and departments, primarily for inventory valuation and income determination. In the health industry, microcost accounting is distinguishable from macrocost (management/internal) ...

The tax-exempt status of not-for-profit healthcare organizations increasingly is being challenged by private, for-profit, investor-owned organizations. Often, the business practices of not-for-profit organizations are virtually indistinguishable from those of for-profit organizations, and not-for-profit organizations sometimes provide less charity and unfunded care than their for-profit competitors. Moreover, the tax subsidies not-for-profit ...

Derivatives--financial instruments with a rate of return derived from an underlying asset--have been used as investment instruments for decades. Many derivative products originally were created explicitly for the purpose of reducing financial risks and have become more widely used and more complex in recent years. Healthcare financial managers should have ...

Not all businesses succeed. A successful business beings with a well-executed business plan. A business plan is essential for the nurse practitioner who is attempting to open a practice. To finance your practice you need a business plan that identifies your purpose, the market you will service, how the practice ...

Fabrication of circumstances surrounding fatal events is not uncommon in forensic medicine. Reasons for this may include financial gain, shame and guilt. The use of a specific sociopolitical phenomenon as a fabricated scenario for lucrative purposes is reported. The importance of thorough scene of crime investigation and documentation, as well ...

Being an effective manager requires a delicate balance of "task focused" and "people focused" managerial actions. Even when the manager has a reason to be focused on tasks, employees should be unlikely to find lack of "people focus." Morale, creativity, and initiative will decrease on the unit, the manager's power ...

Organizations can no longer rely on a single management solution as they respond to a complex world. Biomedical communications managers need to employ a variety of management tools as they cope with a rapidly changing landscape and an increasing set of business pressures. This article describes two management strategies, strategic ...

In an effort to assess trends in the number and type of physician practices being acquired by healthcare organizations throughout the country and to gather information on related costs, HEALTHCARE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT and Physician Services of America, Louisville, Kentucky, cosponsored the first national survey on trends in practice acquisition and ...

Health-care organizations are continuing to seek effective methods of "downsizing" or "rightsizing" their workforce in response to economic pressures imposed by local and national health-care reform. Staff reductions often appear haphazard or reactionary and typically include an "across-the-board" methodology to achieve a predetermined financial goal. In contrast, review of the ...

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is considering a change in rules concerning the circumstances when an organization must present consolidated financial reports with its related organizations. This change could affect healthcare providers that have related foundations or have profit-making affiliates such as a property management company, laundry company, or ...

Telecommuters are the work force of the future. The dawning of the information age, with its explosion of telecommunication technology, presents new opportunities for healthcare agencies to extend their borders far beyond traditional physical boundaries. The virtual workplace can become a reality and position healthcare agencies to be geographically dispersed ...

Healthcare spending in this country is approaching 15% of the gross national product (GNP) while 1.4 million more Americans have become uninsured in the past 12 months. Although we spend nearly twice what some industrialized nations spend, an increasing number of people do not have access to our healthcare system. ...

Too many organizations and managers, the author says, are using "interaction" among employees as a means to encourage them to buy-in, to stimulate teamwork, or to build morale. In too many cases, the forced interaction only serves to annoy or embarrass employees--or raise suspicions about management motives. Wise employees fear ...

1. In today's decentralized organization, front line managerial competency is exemplified by the effective use of power. Managerial responsibilities require that more attention must be focused on power concepts as they pertain to Today's OR manager. 2. Acquiring power means acquiring potential influence. The OR manager, to be successful and ...

Change is reality and the strategic decisions which are made by hospital leadership will largely determine the ultimate success or demise of an institution into this new world of managed care and capitation. There is no magic formula or right answer as to what an institution needs to do to ...

Insufficient attention to organizational issues has prevented outcomes management from achieving its full potential. This article examines the impact of structural, cultural, and cognitive factors on outcomes management. Organic structures differ from mechanistic ones in regard to the organization and implementation of the outcomes management function. Organizational cultures determine the ...

The reform movement in healthcare is occurring in response to financial pressures on American business. The trend toward managed care with competition-based discounting and capitation contracts is likely to continue even if Congress does not enact healthcare reform legislation. Efficient management of resources with acceptable outcomes and customer satisfaction is ...

This article describes the rationale for accessing variable rate debt and the appropriate amount. It explores historical interest rate relationships and explains the motivation for incurring variable rate debt during certain interest rate environments. The article also explores the risks of variable rate debt and the liquid resources needed for ...

Today health care executives are managing organizations that are complex and require a higher degree of financial management, medical knowledge, and general business skills. The skills and academic background required to manage health care facilities have been debated by practitioners and academicians over the years. This study will examine executives' ...

Team management provides opportunities for both employers and employees. The advantages for the dentist employer are that responsibility is shared. As the team members grow in their understanding of the business, the burdens of management become lighter. Also, the perspectives of top team employees enrich the practice. Conversely, employees enjoy ...

Based on their ten years of experience, the authors describe how they have organized and managed the financial resources in the department of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. They outline how to develop realistic budgets to best account for different sources of income and expenses and ...

As principal change agents, healthcare leaders are well positioned to integrate diversity into their institutions' organizational structure. Thus healthcare leaders must be competent in handling diversity issues. Diversity refers to any characteristic that helps shape a person's attitudes, behaviors, perspective, and interpretation of what is "normal." In the healthcare ministry, ...

Larger healthcare organizations may be able to realize additional net revenues by using an outside firm to manage their paid-parking programs. As the author of this article explains, experienced outside management firms work to reduce operational expenditures and improve collections. They use program-specific revenue control methods and monitor parking activity ...

BACKGROUND: As funding sources diminish, it is critical for faculty members in primary care residency programs to better utilize available resources. The curriculum presented here, a practice management course for academicians, can provide fellows and new faculty with some of the budgeting and financial management skills necessary to perform in ...

Three significant trends will dramatically affect human resources management within the healthcare industry in the next decade: changing workforce demographics, declining reimbursement revenues, and increasing demands for high quality services. These trends will require healthcare organizations to develop compensation programs that tie the effectiveness of their human resources to productivity ...

In recent years, organizations have shifted away from offering their employees defined benefit plans that promise specified income streams to employees when they retire. Instead, they are offering employees defined contribution plans, which rely on investment performance, as directed by plan participants, to generate sufficient retirement income. Healthcare financial managers ...

Over the past five years, the principles and tools of quality management have gained a foothold in healthcare, but evaluated in terms of actual breakthroughs in results, the movement has not demonstrated its value as an antidote for America's troubled healthcare delivery system. By reemphasizing their investments in eight critical ...

The relative performance of a healthcare organization's accounts receivable (AR) department is a critical factor affecting an organization's financial well-being. Park Nicollet Medical Center (PNMC), Minneapolis, Minnesota, changed the way it measured its AR department's performance, switching from the rolling averages method of performance measurement to the percentage collected method ...

An independent review and audit of pension fund management can help a plan sponsor improve the fund's financial performance. Reviewing a pension fund's management periodically is important to determine if, among other things, the fund's investment policy is reasonable; the fees charged by investment managers, pension consultants, and trustees are ...

It is the role of healthcare financial managers to maximize their organizations' return on equity, not only for the short term, but also with an eye to the future. This article explores the financial and managerial factors financial managers should consider when planning the strategic sources of capital funds and ...

Managers in the NHS are facing financial reforms which will impact greatly on their role. In general terms, service managers tend to be functionally trained and their financial awareness has not been a pre-requisite for their selection. Their ability to respond to their new role requirements is therefore untested, but ...

Although reengineering may be considered by some as "the latest management fad," when applied broadly and boldly across the organization it can be a powerful driver to create sustainable and dramatic improvement throughout the organization. Thought-leading managers in healthcare should gain an understanding of the principles and concepts of reengineering ...

The creation of the internal market has merely been the latest progression in the change processes confronting the NHS over recent years as the UK Government searches for new ways of expanding patient output while concurrently restricting provision of additional financial resources. To assist in the implementation of change, acute ...

This article describes a conceptual framework for implementation of outcomes driven management. The framework is defined in terms of strategic and financial planning, and quality management. The concept of value for investment is explored and definitions are presented in the introduction. Background information provides an overview of the literature with ...

The interviews demonstrated the belief that boards are accountable for ensuring the effective performance of their organizations. A board's obligation and authority is not limited to recruiting, appointing and replacing the organization's CEO and officers. It must also guide, shape, improve and reward what people do on the job. Performance ...

Patient accounts managers should prepare for their professional futures by critically examining their strengths and weaknesses and using the results of this examination to build on the strengths and correct the weaknesses. They then should tailor their career plans to fit their best estimates of the healthcare environment of the ...

The implementation of prospective payment for capital costs makes it more necessary than ever for healthcare financial managers to be able to creatively balance capital costs with risk. A new financial management tool--the interest rate swap (a contractual agreement in which one party with a fixed interest rate payment liability ...

Turnover of employees is a natural event. It is sometimes a relief when a particular employee leaves the office. On the other hand, the cost of losing any employee can be high because of the costs related to lost productivity, training, and the time required for recruiting a replacement. Because ...

The continuous quality improvement (CQI) process can be a mechanism for balancing a healthcare organization's quests for quality and for profitability. This article explores the role healthcare financial managers can play in the CQI process, discusses how healthcare financial managers can champion a hospital's drive for quality, and presents some ...

Who controls your working life? Who is in the driver's seat of your EMS career? Do dead-end positions, poorly run organizations, frustrating managers, and family and financial commitments have you stuck in a rut? If so, there is something you can do. By following some basic steps, you can overcome ...

Cultural diversity is a strength of the American work force. Due to the increasing cultural diversity in the workplace, organizations find it in their best interest to move beyond affirmative action to effective management to achieve higher employee retention and develops an employee cultural mix that better matches the mix ...