California Sutter Health
California Sutter Health
Sharon Bauer
ACC 281
Christopher Stevens
October 8, 2012
Imagine a business that could not properly handle its debts or collections. Now imagine that this same business never had real-time information to analyze, make important financial decisions, or could not set any benchmarks and received all information 30 days late. Do you think this business could survive? The answer is yes, in this paper we will discuss California Sutter Health which was in that situation and what they did to turn themselves around. Sutter Health is a network of not-for-profit community based healthcare providers. They give care to over 100 Northern California communities and have twelve acute care hospitals. They offer home health services, hospice, and long-term care along with many other treatment facilities (Souza, McCarthy, 2007). Sutter health was having issues with getting upfront collections. They identified multiple other problems when they analyzed their revenue management cycle. First the Patient Financial Services (PFS) staff could not access real-time information on key financial and operational indicators such as accounts receivable (A/R) days. Without real time information managers and staff had to wait until the end of the month to set any kind of benchmarks to track their progress and make important business decisions. Also the hospitals accounting system did not allow managers to analyze data and generate reports, because they did not have the proper access. They had to rely on trained programmers to develop the reports, which often led to costly delays. The other issue they had is that the Central Business Office (CBO) could not receive real-time information, so not only did they not have current information on the accounts they were assigned to the could not effectively prioritize task or monitor their progress (Souza, McCarthy, 2007). Once Sutter saw all of these issues they decided that they needed to revamp the business by
Sharon Bauer
ACC 281
Christopher Stevens
October 8, 2012
Imagine a business that could not properly handle its debts or collections. Now imagine that this same business never had real-time information to analyze, make important financial decisions, or could not set any benchmarks and received all information 30 days late. Do you think this business could survive? The answer is yes, in this paper we will discuss California Sutter Health which was in that situation and what they did to turn themselves around. Sutter Health is a network of not-for-profit community based healthcare providers. They give care to over 100 Northern California communities and have twelve acute care hospitals. They offer home health services, hospice, and long-term care along with many other treatment facilities (Souza, McCarthy, 2007). Sutter health was having issues with getting upfront collections. They identified multiple other problems when they analyzed their revenue management cycle. First the Patient Financial Services (PFS) staff could not access real-time information on key financial and operational indicators such as accounts receivable (A/R) days. Without real time information managers and staff had to wait until the end of the month to set any kind of benchmarks to track their progress and make important business decisions. Also the hospitals accounting system did not allow managers to analyze data and generate reports, because they did not have the proper access. They had to rely on trained programmers to develop the reports, which often led to costly delays. The other issue they had is that the Central Business Office (CBO) could not receive real-time information, so not only did they not have current information on the accounts they were assigned to the could not effectively prioritize task or monitor their progress (Souza, McCarthy, 2007). Once Sutter saw all of these issues they decided that they needed to revamp the business by
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