Annotated Articles on Healthcare Financial Management - Paper Example

Why Revisit Your Cost Accounting Strategy

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Why revisit your cost accounting strategy is an article written by Ricky Arredondo. Arredondo is a healthcare solution architect and works with the Cedar Crestone, Inc. located in Flower Mound, Texas. In this article, Arredondo talks about cost accounting in healthcare reforms. He supports that cost accounting requires financial and clinical data integration across the range of care and that healthcare should look for best ways to reach there but not question much on the pursing of a strategy to be used (Arredondo, 2014). Moreover, Arredondo argues that the question that should be at hand is how can healthcare organizations identify and understand all of the costs that are generated across the continuum of care. In doing so, they will be in a position to understand how to find the clinical and financial data required. Moreover, the cost accounting tools required to accomplish this exercise will include Extract, transform and load, Application program interface and Master data management. Also, the organization should view and evaluate the potential pitfalls to succeed in implementing new cost- accounting methodology. For instance, they should define objectives for the system to ensure that implementation achieves desired results. Thus, Arredondo suggests that by doing so there will reformation in the healthcare.

Inter organizational Relationships and Hospital Financial Performance

This is a research based article that discusses issues concerning hospital financial performance. Also, the article purposes to analyse the interorganizational relationships between hospitals and outpatient doctors (Gloede et. al, 2013). Therefore, the research was instituted by a collection of data from different institutions which was a positive thing to do. The method of data collection involved were the use of questionnaires, annual financial statements of German hospitals for the financial year retrieved from the hospitals database and structural information concerning the hospitals from their quality reports. During the research, the scientists found out that effective relationships with outpatient physicians are associated with hospital profitability. It was discovered through the use of theoretical framework and reliable with previous studies. However, the study was found to have flaws and several things needed to be addressed during the research. They include the analysis of the cross- sectional data which consist capturing longitudinal data to allow for drawing more reliable conclusions about the causal relationship between interorganizational relationships and financial performance (Gloede et. al, 2013). Thus, for future results the research should consider analysing further the role of interorganizational relationships and hospital performance, preferably employing longitudinal study designs and a larger number of hospitals to survey.

Bridging the Gap between Financial Reporting and the Revenue Cycle

It is an article written by Kari Clark and Derek Bang whereby they discuss on issues pertaining bridging the gap between financial reporting and the revenue cycle. Clark is the manager of revenue integrity, Ascension Health in St. Louis while Bang is a partner and healthcare advisory services leader, Crowe Horwath LLP in Indianapolis. According to Clark and Bang, currently the healthcare providers are faced with increased forces on net revenue from payers. Also, they are continued uncertain about on-going reform initiatives and new delivery models, as well as the general financial pressures of a still-struggling economy (Clark & Bang, 2012). They have also discovered that the gap between the finance and revenue cycle is brought up by the several impacts which include disconnections between the accounts receivable and the general ledger. Disparate patient accounting systems and the lack of visibility into the impact of the revenue cycle on the income statement. Thus, by eliminating the faults they will improve both the net revenue integrity and overall operational effectiveness.

References

Arredondo, R. (January 01, 2014). Why revisit your cost-accounting strategy. Healthcare Financial Management : Journal of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, 68, 7, 68-73.

Clark, K., & Bang, D. A. (January 01, 2012). Bridging the gap between financial reporting and the revenue cycle. Healthcare Financial Management : Journal of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, 66, 9, 76-80.

Gloede, T. D., Pulm, J., Hammer, A., Ommen, O., Kowalski, C., Gross, S. E., & Pfaff, H. (October 01, 2013). Interorganizational relationships and hospital financial performance: a resource-based perspective. The Service Industries Journal, 33, 1260-1274.