Healthcare CFO Report

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Posted By: Annmarie Budniak August 13, 2019

When it comes to healthcare financial and payment matters, value-based care, and policy here is what is being reported and talked about. For more on Healthcare CFOs read our previous reports and to keep your finger on the business news pulse, check out our latest Health IT Business News.

To Listen

On HealthcareNOW Radio this month we will be playing Beth Houck’s top played episodes as we say good bye to her as the host of Voices in Value-Based Care. Stay tuned for the show’s new season and host coming in September. In the meantime, check out the VoicesInVBC playlist and Beth’s top four below:

In the News

Insights from the Inside: What Health System CFOs are Thinking
At a conference with leading health system CFOs last week, participants shared valuable ideas, successes and struggles with their peers. Open discussions and panels provided thought-provoking insights for CFOs navigating today’s rapidly changing marketplace. Lumeris (@lumeris) reports four key take-aways.

CVS Health Announces Start of Clinical Trial for New Home Hemodialysis Device
CVS Health (@cvshealth) announced the initiation of a clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the HemoCare Hemodialysis System for administration of home hemodialysis. The innovative device includes safety features and is designed to make home hemodialysis simple for patients. Home hemodialysis helps facilitate longer, more frequent dialysis treatments as compared to in-center treatments, and published clinical research has found that longer, more frequent hemodialysis treatments result in better health outcomes in appropriate patient populations.1,2,3 The clinical trial of up to 70 patients will be conducted at up to ten sites in the United States.

Price Transparency

It has been over a month since President Trump publicized his “Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First.”  Hear what some of our contributors and radio hosts have to say about the topic of price transparency when it comes to healthcare.

Steps on the Path: Impact of Price Transparency
According to Healthcare de Jure host, Matt Fisher (@Matt_R_Fisher), healthcare prices vary significantly from one organization to the next for the same services and patients are highly unlikely to know what those prices will be. The issue is a topic of frequent debate and concern for all within healthcare. With all of those discussions, price transparency can often be touted as a panacea to the ills of the system. That is not necessarily true.

Jeanne Pinder, CEO of Clear Health Costs – Harlow On Healthcare
Now on demand, David Harlow speaks with Jeanne Pinder, founder and CEO of Clear Health Costs (@chcosts). An accomplished journalist with over two decades of experience with The New York Times, Jeanne founded Clear Health Costs to bring transparency to the health care marketplace and empower consumers to make informed decisions about their health care. Jeanne’s TED talk on health care price transparency has garnered well over one million views.

Cost Transparency – The Next Grand Experiment in Healthcare
David Harlow (@healthblawg), host of our HealthcareNOW Radio show Harlow on Healthcare, also writes a blog, HealthBlawg – David Harlow’s Health Care Law Blog. Here is what Harlow had to say about the Executive Order when it was issued.

Integrity, Journey and Transparency Noted Themes at HFMA’s Annual Conference
Pete Thompson, Sr. Revenue Cycle Strategist at ClearBalance (@ClearBalance), attended this year’s Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) Annual Conference and reported that price transparency was one of the three main themes discussed at the conference.. The topic came under specific focus with the signing of President Trump’s executive order aimed at healthcare price transparency during the event.

Opaque Pricing
A staple in our contributor line-up and one of our favorites, William A. Hyman, Professor Emeritus, Biomedical Engineering Texas A&M University, creates a scenario describing what it would be like if a restaurant used a healthcare pricing model.

Finance

Healthcare Merger & Acquisition Activity Report: Q2 2019
KaufmanHall reports activity in Q2, with 19 announced transactions, was behind the 27 transactions announced in Q1 2019. But activity was in line with historical trends, including the 21 transactions announced in Q2 of 2018. Year to date, with 46 announced transactions, activity in 2019 is closely tracking 2018, when there were 50 announced transactions in the first half of the year.

Events

HLTH: October 27-30, 2019 MGM Grand, Las Vegas NV