Latest / Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast / Chris Bergman, Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Dayton Children's Hospital

Transcript

Chris Bergman, Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Dayton Children's Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast

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  - This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Chris Bergman,
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  vice President and Chief Financial Officer
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  at Dayton Children's Hospital.
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  Chris, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  - Thanks, Laura. Thanks for having me.
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  - Now, I'm looking forward to our discussion
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  because I know there's so much happening in healthcare right
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  now, and particularly learning more about
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  what you're doing at Dayton Children's
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  and really tackling some
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  of the challenges in healthcare today
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  and in some, you know, for all healthcare institutions
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  and some particularly for, um, children's health.
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  But before we dive into that,
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  can you tell us a little bit more
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  about yourself and your background?
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  - Uh, sure, Laura, let me, I'll talk a little bit about, uh,
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  my professional background, just a little bit about, um,
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  me personally, but I have been in, uh, healthcare finance
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  for over 40 years, uh, with a,
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  a long public accounting background at Ernst
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  and Young, uh, when I left there.
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  And then, uh, 20 years in
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  what I would call medium-sized adult systems.
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  Uh, I spent a little time in Colorado, was in the first, um,
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  joint operating agreement out there when those were the big
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  deal in the mid nineties.
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  Um, uh, so journey with that organization for 10 years,
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  and then a little bit of time in Michigan and,
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  and now down in Ohio
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  and kind of spending a lot of that time in the adult,
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  adult hospital world.
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  And about eight, a little over eight years ago, um, jumped,
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  uh, into the pediatric scene at Dayton Children's.
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  And it's been, uh, you know, again, I, I felt like for me
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  that medium, smaller size organization is a really good fit
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  for kind of my personality and,
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  and my skillset, um, as opposed to the larger,
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  larger organization.
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  So that's kind of professionally, personally,
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  just one thing nugget about me is that, um, um, you know,
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  God willing, in about a year, I'll,
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  I'll be ordained in the Catholic church as a deacon.
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  So I've been on a, on a faith journey for a period of time
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  and about ready to, uh, take the next step.
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  So that's a little bit about me personally.
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  - Oh, wow. Congratulations. That's a huge accomplishment.
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  And certainly as you mentioned, something that, um, is
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  so important and really a pillar of the community as well.
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  Uh, I can imagine. Um, it's been, like you said, a journey,
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  but, um, such a, a rewarding one too.
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  - It hasn't, it hasn't been a great, uh, rewarding journey,
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  um, all the way along.
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  Got, uh, 16 other guys and journeying with,
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  and it's been just a phenomenal experience.
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  - Oh, that's amazing. Well, congratulations again,
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  and definitely, um, a lot to look forward
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  to in the next, this next year.
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  And, you know, too, um, from your vantage point as CFO
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  of Dayton Children's, what are some of the biggest issues
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  that you're following in healthcare right now?
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  - Well, there's, there's a couple.
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  There's the ones that are unique
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  to the, the, the kids' world.
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  And the one I'm gonna talk about a little bit is
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  pediatric mental health.
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  Um, you know, pre covid we're starting to see more
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  and more kids need, uh, behavioral health services,
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  and Covid kind of really took it into, like,
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  made it go orbital on us.
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  Um, we've had a, we've seen an explosive need
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  for mental health services for our kids.
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  And, uh, I like to say that, that if you,
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  if you know a kid in middle school,
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  if you know five kids in middle school,
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  you've probably known one kid who's put
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  together a suicide pact.
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  And, uh, our, our highest admitting diagnosis in
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  2023 was suicide ideation at the hospital.
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  And, and we're not unique
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  to the other hospitals in the country,
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  other children's hospitals in the country.
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  So that one's a very big issue for us.
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  And it's pretty underfunded in terms of, I mean,
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  Ohio's doing a yeoman's job to try to put money into it,
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  understanding the, the need and, and,
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  and the need to fund it.
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  But it's still largely an underfunded service.
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  So when you think about my biggest growth opportunity over
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  the next five years in a service
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  that pays me a lot less than most of my other services do.
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  So that's, that's a challenge for us uniquely with the, uh,
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  of the children's side of things.
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  And I think that we also track in, in general,
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  like most hospitals do,
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  the whole labor workforce challenges we have, um, just the,
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  um, the, the work, um, the work,
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  I don't know if I'd call it the work ethic.
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  The work code of people today are different.
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  Not saying that's right, wrong
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  or different, they're just different.
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  So trying to find that, that nice medium understanding
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  that people aren't in it
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  for the same reasons they were in it
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  before, uh, the, the, um,
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  that Gen Z is different than the baby boomers, et cetera.
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  So you're just trying to find that balance to
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  how do I engage everybody across the spectrum and,
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  and also looking to see how do we, you know,
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  if there's a shortage out there, how do we change
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  how we do work so
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  that we make sure we have the right people in the right
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  place at the right time?
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  So that's the second one.
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  The third one kind, honestly, has been in the headlines.
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  The whole cyber thing has been big, um,
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  even pre covid we've been building, uh,
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  cyber capabilities at, at our place, uh, in terms of trying
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  to keep attacks out, ransomware, et cetera.
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  And just, you know, you got this whole change healthcare
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  that's impacting hundreds
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  or thousands of hospitals across the country right now.
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  And that's a challenge for us as well as, um, you know,
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  big ransomware attack at, uh, Laurie's Children's.
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  So in my own world, uh, one
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  of our own children's hospitals being attacked, uh,
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  in Chicago, and there's a lot of disruption, a lot of costs.
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  We have a lot of preventive costs in place.
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  We're only as good as the guy
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  that figures out how to get through our systems.
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  So the next person who gives away their credentials, right?
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  So those are, to me, the, the three big issues.
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  One that's generically healthcare labor, one
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  that's uniquely different in, in the kids' world,
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  pediatric mental health.
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  And the other one's kind of u kind
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  of ubiquitous across all companies is, is cyber issues.
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  And we just happen to have a lot of information
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  that people like to get.
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  So those are kind of three biggest things I I see us
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  tracking in, in 24.
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  And, and obviously beyond that too.
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  - Absolutely. I think all those aspects you mentioned are
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  so fascinating and certainly, um, top of mind
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  for many executives across the board today.
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  And in particular, as you were talking
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  through the cyber attack issues, I can imagine, you know,
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  for years, like you said, it's been something
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  that has loomed in,
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  in some organizations that have been hit.
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  But now with Change Healthcare, one of the largest
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  companies, um, connected with Optum
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  and United Health Group, uh, in the country
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  and associated with healthcare in particular too.
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  So, you know, in seeing that hit in, in the disruption from,
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  um, from that particular, um, side of things, how do you,
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  I guess, think about that?
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  Um, I, I know you mentioned obviously being able to, um,
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  have somewhat of a, um, ability to build capabilities
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  and think through what kind of financial, um, responsibility
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  that you have to, to put away, um, in
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  and put parts of the, um, budget
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  and hospital finances towards the cyber attack and,
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  and planning for a potential recovery if something happens.
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  But, um, from, you know, just kind
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  of like looking at the way you're thinking about it today
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  versus the way you thought about it five years ago.
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  You know, what's kind of different? How have things evolved?
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  - I think our education of our employees, uh,
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  and have, has evolved.
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  I always tell a funny story when we first started down this
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  path of trying to test people like you
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  send 'em a fake email, right?
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  And you, and you see if they respond
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  and then you use that as a training tool.
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  A training platform to say, okay, here's
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  what you should have noticed in this email
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  that why you shouldn't have responded to it, right?
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  So I'm teaching you to not respond to things
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  that are, that are coming in.
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  Um, the funny, the funny one was five years ago,
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  we sent one out and said, oh, Christmas time is usual.
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  We're going to, which isn't
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  as usual 'cause we don't do this.
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  We're gonna give you a free Turkey, so put all your info,
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  click on this link and put all your information in.
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  And of course, it was a fake thing,
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  and somebody actually responded to our messages saying,
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  well, you know, last place I worked
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  to actually offer you a Turkey or a ham.
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  I'm like, that guy's gonna be really
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  disappointed when he finds out.
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  We were just testing to see if he put his information in.
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  But that's how we've evolved to,
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  that's not an issue anymore.
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  We're still, we're testing people
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  with, you know, real things.
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  A lot of times during, um, during the, uh,
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  the January timeframe,
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  we'll put stuff out there about W2 information
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  because that's a real thing.
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  And I remember even five years ago, my CEO saying, well,
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  Chris, can you make it not seem so real?
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  I'm like, well, you know, bad guys make it look real.
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  We have to make our fake things look real
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  so we can test and we can educate.
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  We're not trying to hold anybody.
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  We're not, it's not punitive.
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  It's like, okay, we need to, we need to educate more here.
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  We need to tell people what this is like, et cetera.
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  So there's that piece that we've escalated our testing,
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  but that's only so good.
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  Then you've got 24 hour monitoring.
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  If things are, things are starting to ping us,
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  like what's our systems look like that says,
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  here's some walls up here that we're looking and training.
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  You know, you have to have software products that, that,
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  that look at those things and try to keep things out.
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  I mean, I guess we turn down thousands of emails a day
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  that are phishing emails and some get through, and CEOs
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  and CFOs and c-suite members are huge
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  targets for all those things.
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  Um, and my CEO's super savvy at all.
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  This actually fell to one not too long ago, and it just,
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  because it looked super real
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  and, uh, it so it, it, it's, it's so, it's so easy.
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  I mean, I worry about it all the time and
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  because I get so many of these things,
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  I know sometimes I don't respond when I should have
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  because I, I think they're fake.
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  And, um, so it's just, it, it's a disruptor.
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  But we're, I mean, you never say you're in good shape
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  because you know, as good as the,
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  the guy tomorrow that does something.
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  But a lot of times what we found is it's people freely
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  giving up their, their, their credentials.
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  That is what is what how people, the bad guys get in.
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  And so it's just a matter of trying to, you're trying
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  to train people for that, you know,
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  now they're intercepting, you know, you have the, the, uh,
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  the, you know, the, the authenticator thing that comes in
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  and texts you and says, you know, put in this number.
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  Well, they're faking those things now too.
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  So now they've infiltrated that piece.
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  So it's just constantly trying to stay ahead of 'em.
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  And you end up having an infrastructure, you have a team
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  that monitors the traffic, you got software tools,
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  and now all of a sudden you have a caution in your system
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  to try to do something you really,
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  that adds zero patient care, uh, to
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  what you're doing in your organization.
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  It's just some way to try
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  to keep the bad guys from getting all your stuff
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  and locking down your systems.
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  And so it's unfortunate.
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  Uh, now it's the cost of business, um, uh, to do it.
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  But that's how it's changed over.
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  I mean, I would say five years ago we had very few
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  of those tools, um,
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  but that we've really escalated our training and education
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  and, and the tools we had to try to monitor that stuff.
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  And we continue to look at that
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  and our guys are dialed into all the cyber networks out
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  there, and they talk to the feds, you know,
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  'cause the feds host different things as
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  to what's going on in terms of the threat,
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  uh, alerts that are out there.
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  So they stay on top of that to try to do the best they can
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  to keep us, keep us safe.
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  - Absolutely. That's so helpful to hear and think through.
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  And, you know, um, definitely is something
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  that I can imagine, just like you said,
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  continues to evolve and change.
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  And so staying on top of it is a challenge. Mm-Hmm.
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  , when you look ahead,
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  what are you most excited about and what makes you nervous?
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  - Well, I think there's some really cool things going on.
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  Y you, so the cyber side, the, the, the digital things
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  that we're, that we're communicating with our patients
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  and families, et cetera.
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  So for us, our, our, um,
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  we're a little bit different in the pediatric world in
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  that most of the people we communicate with are millennials,
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  you know, 'cause they're in that 30 to 40 year range
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  as the parent that we're dealing with.
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  Whereas the adult hospitals have different, um, age groups
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  and generations they're talking to.
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  But we have a lot of people in that group.
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  They, they like to be kind communicated
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  with digitally, right?
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  So they don't, they don't want a
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  phone call, they don't want an email.
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  I mean, they're, they're digital.
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  Uh, a lot of times they're digital natives
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  'cause that's, they grew up with it all.
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  And so, but it's exciting there to start figuring out how
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  to get away from paper processes and old things, et cetera,
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  and move into that, that era.
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  So that's, that's exciting.
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  It's scary at the same time
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  because there's a little bit
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  of impersonal piece of that too, right?
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  When you, when when you do that,
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  you're disconnecting the personal touch into a,
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  a digital touch, which has, it loses something,
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  uh, from that perspective.
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  But it's exciting because we can build those tools.
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  We have it probably,
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  and maybe a little bit easier on the
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  pediatric side to do it.
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  'cause most of our patients families
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  and the people we communicate with are in that, in
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  that small group versus the adults that have the,
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  the seniors and the 30 year olds
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  and everybody in between
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  that all have different communication, uh, methods.
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  That's not to say we don't, but by
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  and large we have a large group of people
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  that can be communicated with in one fashion.
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  So I think that's exciting.
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  The other piece that we're seeing in the pediatric front is
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  the pediatricians are,
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  have largely been independent in the pediatric world.
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  Uh, usually in the pediatric world,
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  the hospitals will employ the specialist
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  and sub-specialists, but the pediatricians
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  have tended to be independent.
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  They're starting to, um, come into employment with us,
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  which gives us a great opportunity to integrate all
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  that information so that we can really tie in, um, you know,
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  all your wealth checks and all those things into ed visits
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  and, and costly healthcare and things like that.
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  So there's, there's, um, to me that's exciting
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  because that's, that's integration, that's integration
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  of healthcare at, at kind of, its at, its at its best.
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  And um, so those are, those are two I think
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  that are, that are exciting.
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  There's obviously costs
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  and, you know, when you start employing physicians,
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  do you lose money, et cetera, et cetera.
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  So those are all your things you worry about.
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  But see, if you look at it as this ability to really
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  transform how we deliver care, uh, I find
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  that really, really exciting.
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  The other piece we've been working on from a clinical side
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  and, and, uh, I got involved
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  'cause we're looking at, you know, cost, how do we,
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  how do we improve cost outcomes, et cetera,
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  is just this whole notion of once a person comes in
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  and admitted, are we managing their discharge?
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  Are we discharging them when we, when we think we're ready
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  to send 'em home, are we manage 'em up front
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  and educating 'em, et cetera, et cetera,
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  which yields a whole bunch of great outcomes.
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  I mean, one, from the finance guy's perspective,
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  it's probably better cost because I'm not gonna have all
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  those variation in my patient pathways
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  because we're gonna be talking
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  to patients the day they come in the door
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  when they should be going home.
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  We're gonna be managing to an expected discharge date
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  that may change, but at least from
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  managing to a date we think about.
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  So that helps manage costs.
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  But I think from the patient communication,
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  patient expectation perspective,
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  I think has got tremendous upside to help them understand
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  and be more transparent with them on how they, their care,
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  uh, journeys through while they're at, at the hospital.
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  So to me that's exciting.
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  That's, that's, that's transforming how we deliver care.
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  It isn't just the standard, you know, standard finance stuff
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  of trying to, to do something
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  for a little bit less money than we spent the year
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  before, which we have to do too.
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  I mean, we have to figure out all those pieces as well.
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  But trying to transform it
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  where you really get some different, uh, change to me is,
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  is is exciting.
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  And the final thing for us is we're starting to, uh,
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  in the pediatric world, we've got some areas of town
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  that are largely underserved with very little access to,
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  you know, um, uh, primary care sorts of services.
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  And so we're starting
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  to venture out into those, those areas.
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  We, uh, we take risk on a Medicaid contract
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  and so we're able to reinvest those dollars into, um,
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  you know, going out to, uh, you know, into these communities
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  and bringing healthcare out to them.
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  So it's more convenient for them to do, which should,
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  should be transformative for them as well.
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  Uh, 'cause all, they won't be always being
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  seen in the emergency room.
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  So have a lot of, a lot of kids
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  who are seen in the emergency room simply
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  'cause they don't have access to anything else.
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  So that's, to me, that's exciting too, to try to change
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  how we, how we take care of our, our, our community better.
• 16:08
  - That's amazing to hear. And definitely so important,
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  as you said, just to, um, have that access to care
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  and really cool to see some of those trends, whether it's
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  with kind of the, the digital access
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  and being able to connect easily in, in, in, in a way
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  that is, um, convenient for patients.
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  And then too, having the pediatric physicians now
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  coming into employment.
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  I think that's such an interesting trend.
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  Uh, what do you think is driving them into the employment
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  space and, um, versus being independent
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  as they had been for so many years?
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  - Well, it's interesting, but you know,
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  it's some of us, the impact of covid.
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  So even though we're, how many years are we past Covid,
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  who's, who could say, right, who,
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  who knows when covid actually ended,
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  but as they came out of covid
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  and some of the recovery dollars went away,
• 16:52
  they found some people had changed patterns.
• 16:54
  So, you know, when you have young kids
• 16:57
  and they get sick, you, you want them seen right away,
• 17:00
  but sometimes they get better in 72 hours.
• 17:02
  Well, during Covid, you actually found that out
• 17:05
  because you didn't go, you didn't go take him out.
• 17:07
  You just kind of wrote it out sometimes.
• 17:09
  So, so some things changed from that perspective.
• 17:11
  And then as a parent, maybe I thought, I don't need
• 17:14
  to take my kid to the doctor as quickly
• 17:16
  as I, as I did in the past.
• 17:17
  Right? That's one. All these are little pieces,
• 17:19
  but they all impacted their volume.
• 17:21
  Uh, people found alternative ways to do it.
• 17:24
  They did, they did, uh, virtual televisit,
• 17:28
  um, they went to urgent cares or,
• 17:31
  or we have a series of these, uh,
• 17:33
  pediatric minute clinics we've opened.
• 17:35
  So people started going to those.
• 17:36
  So they, they didn't go to the pediatrician,
• 17:38
  so you had another little piece of the business
• 17:41
  that went away, you know, from that perspective.
• 17:43
  And then their cost of running their business went way up
• 17:46
  because when inflation went high, uh, here 18 months ago,
• 17:50
  whenever it was, they had a, you know, an 8% cost
• 17:53
  of their labor workforce
• 17:55
  and the same labor challenges we have,
• 17:57
  but we're a large organization,
• 17:58
  we can figure a lot of those things out.
• 18:00
  They can't. And so they've, they've had, you know,
• 18:03
  they've had a loss of volume and an increase in cost.
• 18:08
  And I think, and they,
• 18:09
  and they have the same similar challenge like I talked about
• 18:13
  before with the workforce, is
• 18:14
  that people coming outta medical school don't necessarily
• 18:17
  want to go entrepreneurial
• 18:18
  and go run their own practice anymore.
• 18:20
  They kind of want to go be,
• 18:22
  they semi kind of want to just be employed.
• 18:24
  They don't want to have to run it,
• 18:25
  worry about running their own business.
• 18:27
  And so I think these guys have been in it for a long time.
• 18:30
  They can't recruit guys
• 18:31
  to come in and do what they used to do.
• 18:33
  You know, they, they, they have a, it's a different piece.
• 18:36
  I think that there's kind of a three,
• 18:37
  three three-pronged piece to that is I think there's loss
• 18:40
  of volume, there's higher costs,
• 18:42
  and I think it's hard for them to find replacement guys
• 18:44
  to come in and, and, and it's hard to fund them.
• 18:47
  If I got a little bit loss of volume
• 18:49
  and higher cost, I don't have as much money to try
• 18:52
  to subsidize a new guy coming into my practice.
• 18:54
  And so I think all those things put together is really hard,
• 18:57
  uh, for them to continue to manage through.
• 18:59
  So you seeing more of 'em come to the door
• 19:01
  and saying, you know, we've been working,
• 19:03
  we've been working with 'em for years.
• 19:05
  'cause they largely work with us.
• 19:06
  It's just they have been working with us as a independent,
• 19:09
  as an independent organization,
• 19:10
  but now that they're have a tighter relationship with us,
• 19:13
  we can incorporate them into our electronic medical record,
• 19:16
  which happens to be epic,
• 19:17
  but we can incorporate it in there.
• 19:18
  Now all a sudden you've got this full patient record, right?
• 19:22
  And so it's really got some great
• 19:23
  benefits from that perspective.
• 19:27
  - Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for, uh, going through
• 19:29
  that with us and going one big deeper.
• 19:31
  It is really just helpful and informative.
• 19:33
  Um, before we wrap up our conversation here,
• 19:35
  we've talked a lot about some
• 19:36
  of the ways healthcare is changing, whether it's
• 19:38
  through technology, um, obviously a lot of workforce changes
• 19:42
  and then certainly, you know, different, um,
• 19:45
  patterns from patients as well as what communities want
• 19:48
  and, and need from healthcare.
• 19:49
  So what do you think the most effective healthcare leaders
• 19:52
  will need to be successful over the next
• 19:54
  two to three years or so?
• 19:58
  - I, I think you get the approach to everything that, um,
• 20:01
  so first talk about the broader healthcare leader
• 20:04
  and a little bit about the finance guy,
• 20:05
  but I think you have to approach it
• 20:08
  that the way I did it isn't always the right way going
• 20:11
  forward and that we really have to think differently.
• 20:14
  And it's hard. It's really,
• 20:15
  and I'm not saying you're always stuck in the past,
• 20:17
  but it's just hard to make transformative change
• 20:19
  and really change what you're doing.
• 20:21
  And you really have to think about it.
• 20:23
  If workforce is gonna get tighter,
• 20:25
  costs are gonna be higher.
• 20:26
  It's just, and there's gonna be continued pressure on rates,
• 20:29
  uh, in terms of what, how we're paid.
• 20:31
  I think you just have to keep, um, you have
• 20:34
  to keep constantly looking at
• 20:36
  how you transform your business.
• 20:37
  And, and as a healthcare leader, she, one of the things we,
• 20:41
  we found with some of our, um, healthcare leaders is they,
• 20:46
  they think they know what the consumer wants,
• 20:49
  but they really need to listen to the consumer.
• 20:52
  Like in our world is that, that, that,
• 20:54
  because we have this millennial group, you have
• 20:56
  to understand what I call 'em,
• 20:59
  the Amazon prime generation, right?
• 21:02
  Oh, it's 10 o'clock tonight and I need something tomorrow.
• 21:04
  So I go online and I order it and I get it right?
• 21:06
  That want, they want healthcare the same way and,
• 21:09
  and we have to figure out
• 21:11
  how we can't deliver the same way Amazon Prime can,
• 21:13
  but we have to figure out how to deliver something
• 21:15
  that they want and meet them somewhere versus thinking
• 21:18
  that we've had people who said,
• 21:21
  we had some pediatricians in our community
• 21:23
  that thought consumerism was a disease
• 21:25
  that was gonna go away.
• 21:27
  and I, we can't wait till they come back to come in
• 21:30
  and visiting us when we want to be here.
• 21:31
  And it's like, well that's, that's, that's not gonna happen.
• 21:34
  So as a healthcare leader, you gotta understand like,
• 21:36
  what's the consumer, what's going on,
• 21:37
  and how do I meet them where they need to be so
• 21:40
  that they're, that, that I'm meeting their needs within
• 21:43
  obviously a reasonable, uh, um,
• 21:46
  cost perspective, et cetera, et cetera.
• 21:47
  But I think that that's a big piece on a broad basis.
• 21:51
  And as a finance guy, I always say,
• 21:52
  you gotta keep your finger on the revenue cycle
• 21:54
  because I, I would say I have a,
• 21:57
  I have a really good revenue cycle leader.
• 21:59
  I have a pretty good revenue cycle.
• 22:01
  But you know, we, if we don't stay focused on it,
• 22:04
  we wake up one day and we've lost a percent
• 22:06
  and a half of our revenue through a variety of things,
• 22:09
  the payers aren't looking to pay us more.
• 22:13
  And we have to kind of think that
• 22:14
  and say they're not looking to pay us more.
• 22:16
  So they're always changing subtle things like things.
• 22:18
  And if we don't stay on top of it,
• 22:20
  it's really easy to lose a percent.
• 22:22
  And that's a lot of money. Um, so he is just,
• 22:25
  I think the finance guy sometimes it's like, yeah,
• 22:27
  revenue cycles kind of ho-hum 'cause of the same thing,
• 22:30
  but it doesn't take long to lose a percent or two
• 22:32
  or 3% of that,
• 22:33
  and all of a sudden that's a big, that's a big margin.
• 22:36
  You're not getting paid for what you, what you're doing,
• 22:38
  uh, in the organization.
• 22:39
  So that's a, that's a big piece.
• 22:41
  Um, and I just think that that,
• 22:44
  the other thing I'd say on the finance side, you, you, you,
• 22:47
  you gotta be like the, you may not be the COO,
• 22:50
  but you gotta be like the COO,
• 22:52
  you gotta really understand what's going on so you can try
• 22:54
  to help make some of those changes.
• 22:55
  And a lot of CFOs have gone down that path.
• 22:57
  So I'm not trying to say they don't,
• 22:59
  but I think that you've gotta always think about the fact
• 23:02
  that it's not just financial.
• 23:04
  And I always say that sometimes I have
• 23:06
  to invest in something to get the return later.
• 23:09
  And you gotta really think about that.
• 23:10
  You gotta look at long term.
• 23:12
  Um, one of the things we've tried really hard
• 23:14
  to do is on the finding size, not get, you have
• 23:17
  to look at the monthly results,
• 23:19
  but you can't just be myopic on the monthly results.
• 23:21
  You gotta look long-term and say,
• 23:23
  are we going where we need to be going?
• 23:25
  And I'm looking at the long-term health of the organization,
• 23:27
  not what happened yesterday or today or tomorrow
• 23:30
  or next week or this month or whatever.
• 23:32
  So I think some of those pieces to say,
• 23:34
  how do I look at, look forward?
• 23:36
  How do I continue to work on transforming care and my,
• 23:38
  and looking at my consumers?
• 23:40
  And then just kind of keeping your fingers on
• 23:41
  that revenue cycle and making sure that you're constantly,
• 23:45
  uh, collecting everything, billing
• 23:46
  and collecting, coding, capturing,
• 23:49
  whatever you wanna call it, everything you can, I might
• 23:51
  as well get paid for everything I do in the organization.
• 23:53
  So,
• 23:55
  - Yeah.
• 23:56
  Yeah, I think all those are such a great point
• 23:57
  and definitely interesting, um, from the CFO perspective
• 24:00
  as you were talking about how to really get out of having
• 24:04
  that myopic finance, uh, focus and really think broadly
• 24:08
  and look broadly, think ahead
• 24:09
  and, um, look at, you know,
• 24:11
  where healthcare is transforming.
• 24:13
  And I think it goes back to so much of
• 24:14
  what we've talked about already,
• 24:15
  whether it's looking at workforce
• 24:17
  or where healthcare is taking place inside of the hospital
• 24:19
  or outside of the hospital and
• 24:20
  technology and all of these things.
• 24:22
  Um, I can imagine, you know, having that open mind
• 24:25
  and being able to, uh, transition along with healthcare, um,
• 24:28
  is not always easy, but definitely, uh, one way that,
• 24:32
  you know, you can really, um,
• 24:33
  put yourself in the best position
• 24:34
  to be successful in the future.
• 24:37
  - Yeah. Say, well, the, the, the challenges is, is, uh,
• 24:40
  we're all trained in the finance world.
• 24:42
  We're trained to our skillset a lot
• 24:45
  of times our personalities that we go into that profession,
• 24:48
  we're, we're trained and, and kind of formed into.
• 24:51
  That's how I think it's harder
• 24:52
  to think differently sometimes.
• 24:54
  That's is how we're trained to,
• 24:56
  and you have to have some of that.
• 24:58
  I can't let today get away from me either,
• 25:01
  but can't just be focused on today.
• 25:03
  I can't worry about how many fts I had today
• 25:05
  or whatever the case may be.
• 25:07
  I, I do, but I also gotta look ahead
• 25:09
  and say, am I moving in the right direction?
• 25:10
  Do I have the tools in place, uh,
• 25:13
  to help people do their their things?
• 25:14
  And maybe one of the last thing I'd say,
• 25:16
  because we're still, we'd have no idea how
• 25:18
  to figure this out, is the whole AI thing
• 25:21
  and even defining what AI means.
• 25:23
  Like what, what is ai? Is it machine learning?
• 25:26
  Is it truly, is it the chat GPT stuff? Is it broad?
• 25:29
  I mean, we're, we're still
• 25:31
  trying to get our hands around that.
• 25:32
  It's, um, but that's something that I even listed any
• 25:35
  of the things we talked about, which that's still out there
• 25:38
  as a big thing, but I don't, I couldn't tell you what I,
• 25:41
  what I even think about at this point in time.
• 25:42
  I think you gotta get your arms around it
• 25:44
  and define it first so you can figure out where you're,
• 25:46
  where you want to go with it.
• 25:48
  - Yeah, definitely. That's such a great point.
• 25:50
  So many of these conversations, AI comes up
• 25:52
  and, um, you know, definitely, um, in a space
• 25:56
  where it's still very much evolving and,
• 25:58
  and understanding exactly what, um, that means and,
• 26:02
  and what it entails for healthcare and health systems.
• 26:05
  So it'll just be interesting, uh,
• 26:06
  to see over the next few months here, um, where things go
• 26:09
  and, and how, um, health systems can really, uh,
• 26:12
  produce some of these, um, great use cases for it
• 26:15
  and then, um, continue to evolve.
• 26:18
  - Absolutely. - Well, Chris, thank you so much
• 26:20
  for joining us on the podcast today.
• 26:22
  This has been such a fascinating discussion.
• 26:23
  I wish we had two or three more hours here to talk about it,
• 26:26
  but, uh, you know, hopefully we'll be able
• 26:28
  to catch up again soon and looking forward as well
• 26:30
  to have you speaking at our fall events, um,
• 26:33
  here in Chicago, our Health IT Digital Health
• 26:35
  and Revenue Cycle event, as well as C-E-O-C-F-O Roundtable.
• 26:38
  So it'll be great to have you here in person.
• 26:41
  - Yeah, I'd like to meet you, Laura, when I,
• 26:42
  when I get there.