The CEOs of three major hospital systems participated in a round table at the recent conference that I attended to discuss how their organizations are working to improve patient experience. One of the topics that emerged is “financial transparency”. All three disclosed that in their facilities, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) makes regular rounds on the hospital floors to be on the front lines to hear and address patient questions and concerns.
One of the CEOs told a story about a VIP who spent time in their facility turns out that the VIP had a question about something they were being charged. The CFO was called to the room and he couldn’t answer the question so he, in turn, summoned other staff into the room until the details were unraveled. Having been in similar situations, I can envision the entire decision support team standing in that patient’s room.
It is not a coincidence that this challenge applies to most the major hospitals systems in the US. One of the CEOs commented that the patient of the future who has to spend more of their own money will not tolerate the craziness of being billed 3X what we expect to be reimbursed. In addition, there are only a few people who understand the world of charges and contracts and reimbursement, not to mention margins and profitability. To stay competitive in today’s environment, healthcare organizations need to streamline inefficient processes and understand the types and amount of resources they need to deliver care across the enterprise. This can only be achieved through cost transparency. Most healthcare entities still use spreadsheets for costing and primitive costing methods with resulting cost allocation that fails to match resources and related costs to their services. This makes it impossible to arrive at informed decisions that will improve financial results.
Enormous culture shifts are needed to change the pricing and billing systems, but there is something that hospitals can do now to understand and achieve transparency from the cost and profitability perspective. Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) is a solution that will automate and accelerate transparency for cost and profitability modeling through use of robust calculation engine and powerful reporting and visualization tools.
Perficient is an Oracle Platinum partner and we uniquely positioned to implement the HPCM solution by leveraging our strong Enterprise Performance Management and Clinical Claims analytic expertise. We are showcasing our EPM team at the upcoming Healthcare Industry User Group INTERACT conference June 9th – 12th. Come see us in booth #209!
