Speak Their Language: Bridging the Gap Between Financial and Operational Planning
Identifying The Language Barrier
As organizations work toward a more agile, accurate planning process, there remains a gap between the traditional budget of the past and a better approach, one that works to align finance leaders with clinical operations.
Traditionally, finance and clinical operations teams have struggled to speak the same language. Finance speaks in terms of cost centers, accounts and net income, while clinical operations speaks in terms of patients, procedures, outcomes and care pathways. This language barrier makes it nearly impossible for the two to align and execute on a single plan.
As the steward of financial responsibility in the organization, it is the job of finance leaders to engage operations and drive their ownership of the financial plan.
It is the responsibility of the finance team to bridge that gap. Finance must reach out and make operations part of the process, doing the work to engage the organization.
The finance team is responsible for learning to speak the language of operations, to encourage them to commit to targets within their control, and to translate that commitment into a financial impact. Only then can the finance team begin to hold clinical operations accountable to the plan.
In this whitepaper, learn ways that the finance team can bridge the gap and find new ways to understand, engage, and empower clinical operations—leveraging their insights to create actionable, aligned financial plans with less drain on the organization.
The patient asked Dr. Shah how much treatment was going to cost, and he hit a wall. He had no idea what the cost of care was. As a resident, he and many others abide by the Hippocratic Oath to first, do no harm, and always keep the patient’s health and safety at the forefront. In training, he says physicians simply are not trained to think about the cost, or financial well-being, of their patients. This lack of knowledge “eroded [the patient’s] trust in me,” Dr. Shah said.
Hospitals and health systems are caught in the middle of the transition from a fee-for-service payment system to a pay-for-performance system. To handle the challenges associated with the change, CFOs and finance teams should consider the right flight path, Mr. Carter says.
