Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Eric J. Price, Chief Financial Officer at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital

Transcript

Eric J. Price, Chief Financial Officer at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:02
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• 0:32
  Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Hospital Reviewed
• 0:34
  podcast. My name is Will Riley from r
• 0:37
  one. I'm joined today by Eric Price. Eric
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  is the chief financial officer at Schoolcraft Memorial
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  Hospital. Eric, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Will.
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  Good good morning. How are you doing? Great.
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  Thank you. Very good. I'm looking forward to
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  talking to you.
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  So So to start us off, can you
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  tell us a little bit about your role?
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  Tell us about Schoolcraft and some of the
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  priorities that you're focused on. Sure. Yep. So
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  I'm the chief financial officer at Schoolcraft Memorial
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  Hospital, and I've been there just about three
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  years.
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  This will be my fifteenth year in the
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  healthcare
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  industry as a senior executive leader.
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  Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital is about 12 bed, critical
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  access hospital,
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  and we serve a population of about 12,000
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  individuals, unique patients. We're in the Upper Peninsula
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  Of Michigan,
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  and we have we're a critical access hospital.
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  Quite a bit of services,
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  surgery,
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  orthopedic,
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  ENT,
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  wild specialty services,
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  swing bed as you'd expect, and a pretty
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  robust home health hospice and rehab program.
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  Tell me about some of the things that
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  are on your mind as you head into
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  2026.
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  Well, I think a lot of health care
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  executives are you know, we're we're in an
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  area of disruption. That's for sure. I think
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  the biggest thing we're looking at is how
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  do we navigate successfully,
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  you know, the challenges both economic, financial, and
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  political that are happening right now. I think
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  in my career, you know, we've we've always
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  had financial headwinds,
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  but the uncertainty
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  in that landscape is making it a bit
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  challenging.
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  For 2026, we're just trying to be,
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  you know, kinda create stability.
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  Some of our growth plans, we are putting
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  on hold for just a bit until we
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  know for sure, you you know, how some
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  of these federal regulations may play out.
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  And we also wanna make sure we're not
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  extending ourselves too far so we're finding ourselves
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  in a financial, you know, downturn or something
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  like that. Okay. Great. I want to touch
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  on some of those things as we talk
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  today.
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  Let's start, if we can, though, with with
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  some questions about technology. Sure.
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  I'm interested in that. And then let's come
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  back, and we'll talk a bit more about
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  some of the financial dynamics, maybe some payer
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  relations and patient patient relations and and so
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  on as well before we finish.
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  So,
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  obviously, everyone at the moment in health care
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  technology is talking about AI. I'm curious about
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  what that looks like for a small critical
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  access hospital.
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  Yeah. So we actually, as I mentioned, have
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  quite a robust specialty service offering.
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  And a key component of that for us
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  is our imaging and radiology department.
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  So about two or three years ago, we
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  purchased
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  a new fluoroscopy machine and a new digital
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  X-ray machine with a portable digital X-ray.
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  We were slated to purchase a new CT
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  machine this year, but we actually held off.
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  With the AI advancements in imaging,
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  we wanted to see what might develop over
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  the next eighteen months.
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  That was, you know, decision a year ago,
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  and we are getting ready
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  to issue an RFP
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  for a CT machine
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  with some of that advanced imaging AI technology.
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  So we're really excited about AI in that
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  space.
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  Our current X-ray equipment does have AI technology
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  to help with dosage, so we're not overdosing
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  or underdosing.
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  And it really helps with the, imaging and
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  the quality of the images we get.
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  Do you feel like, so so health care
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  has traditionally moved very,
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  cautiously with new technologies.
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  For you, is that the case with AI,
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  or do you think this is different? Or
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  how how do you look at that compared
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  with other
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  technology evolutions that you've seen?
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  Yeah. I think,
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  personally,
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  what I've seen is is
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  some kind of delayed adoption in the hospitals
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  I worked for. Mhmm. I know that
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  in some spaces, AI makes sense, like I
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  said, with radiology or anything with diagnostic testing.
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  We're a little cautious around some of the
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  AI that may be centered around, say, coding
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  and billing.
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  We want to ensure that the
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  AI systems are,
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  I
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  guess, more robust and have matured a bit,
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  so we're not getting bad coding. That's just
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  a concern.
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  The challenge, I think, is there's not a
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  lot of data out there that we've seen
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  showing, you know, is there a success with
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  early adopters? We hear about the opportunities,
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  but we're not hearing much about the downsides.
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  And that's one thing we're we're just being
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  cautious about.
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  In some spaces, AI, we wanna just kinda
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  take a wait and see approach.
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  Other spaces, we're like, yes. It makes sense.
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  Let's move forward, because it has low risk
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  and high reward type situation.
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  And tell me about the kinds of
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  partnerships that you're making around some of these
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  new technologies.
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  Are you working with incumbent
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  partners, like
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  major legacy technology vendors or big payers? Like,
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  who who do you see, I suppose,
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  having the advantages
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  in this new
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  technology?
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  So
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  that is a good question. I I think,
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  you know, with our main EHR,
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  we're
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  we're trying to kinda stay with the core
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  functionality of our EHR and let that develop.
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  We feel that that is probably
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  a safe approach.
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  But there are certain areas
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  with, like, data inter
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  interchange or
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  passing information to other, like, third parties, like
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  a radiology group, whatever. We would like to
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  look at maybe some smaller vendors that can
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  help, you know, customize and tailor to our
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  needs. I think the challenge we've seen with
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  some of the bigger EHR vendors
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  is it's just a challenge to move forward
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  with any change, whether it be something we
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  need at the local level or a state
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  change
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  or a national change. It just seems difficult
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  to get all of the updates that we
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  want
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  operationally into that system. Mhmm. Whether it be
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  and I've worked with several EHR vendors throughout
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  my career. So I'm trying to save it
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  vendor agnostic here. But,
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  again, I think some of the larger EHR
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  systems, they're not as nimble as some of
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  the smaller,
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  startups are. And that's, something we look at
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  and evaluate.
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  And is that on, you've you've given some
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  sort of clinical examples so far. You said
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  you're a bit more cautious on some of
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  the administrative use cases. Does that hold true
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  across both of those worlds?
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  No. I think we'd be interested in if
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  a vendor were to provide
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  a,
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  you know, a product that fits our need,
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  that's our main thing. We we tend to
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  we've actually increased our call it RFQ, request
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  for proposal process, where we put out scope
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  of work, expectations,
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  deliverables,
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  criteria that we say this is an acceptable
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  product.
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  I think in years past,
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  we'd had some vendors that sold us a
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  product, but we didn't get what we expected
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  out of it. And so we're a little
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  more cautious in that regard with our contracting
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  and our negotiations.
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  But as far as AI
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  in that conversation,
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  we are looking at ways to increase efficiencies
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  and gain,
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  you know, just
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  better outcomes. Yeah. And at the end of
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  the day, I think one thing I should
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  have mentioned at the beginning of the, we
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  are at the hospital, we are keenly,
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  in tune with our needs of our community
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  and really want to do the best for
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  our people, our community, and our patients. Because
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  in a small community like Schoolcraft County,
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  our our patients are our family members. We're
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  we're it's somebody you know, you went to
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  school with them or
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  you just we're small communities. We take care
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  of each other that way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
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  Okay.
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  Tell me about how some of these new
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  technologies are changing work in the c suite.
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  Are you how
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  as you introduce new technology, as you introduce
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  AI, are you having to think about new
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  ways of governing that technology or owning that
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  technology in the c suite? And what role
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  do you play as CFO?
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  So we have had some conversations around compliance,
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  and
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  I think that's one of the
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  concerns we've we've thought about is what does
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  AI technology do as far as
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  one area we look at cautiously as labor
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  pool.
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  We have some
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  in our health information department and other areas,
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  we have union union
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  shops.
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  And we want to ensure that as we
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  navigate forward in the AI space, that we're
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  very cognizant of the impact that may have
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  on labor
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  and, how
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  jobs may shift or evolve and to ensure
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  that the people that we've invested so much
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  time and energy in training,
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  have a good strong path forward.
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  If AI becomes
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  more prevalent,
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  what are we going to do to ensure
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  those people
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  have,
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  you know, a role in the future for
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  the hospital too? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
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  And and how are you thinking about that?
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  Can you tell me more about that? I
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  mean, because areas like financial operations, for example,
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  are shifting and are becoming a bit more
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  technology led than they have been in the
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  past. Yeah. I think one of the advantages
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  so I'll I'll kinda stay with the health
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  information thread.
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  We use we have in the past had
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  different coding auditors and vendors. We're hoping that
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  in the AI space, we can get
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  a tool that to help our coders
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  select the right, I guess, code level it,
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  edit, whatever it may be.
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  But instead of using a third party for
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  audit and chart audits, hoping to develop a
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  team so that they themselves become self sufficient,
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  we do are less reliant on external vendors
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  for those chart audits. I I think
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  the current model is we have so much
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  volumes happening. We've had a pretty big growth
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  since the pandemic as well. I think we're
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  about 30% volume growth. Uh-huh. And so the
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  team is processing more claims or more touch
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  points
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  per visit,
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  and any way we can make that more
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  efficient would be ideal. Yeah. As far as
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  governing it,
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  again, we've we haven't really explored much in
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  the
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  rev cycle workspace. There are some proposals we're
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  evaluating,
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  but we've stayed more on the science technology
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  radiology side Yeah. Or like lab analyzers type
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  thing. We just haven't pushed forward into the
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  workspace that may impact the human impact factor.
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  Yeah. Okay. Okay. But it sounds like your
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  hope is that when you do, you can
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  use technology as a base and then sort
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  of upskill or uplevel some of the work
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  that your team does. Yep. One area yeah.
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  One area that has had a a boost
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  recently is our informatics team. We've seen a
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  lot of better data,
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  more accurate data, more timely data coming out
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  of the informatics team with the advances in
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  some of the AI technology and just even,
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  you know, data analytic tools. So that's where
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  I think we're gonna see our biggest opportunity
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  in the next year would be data analytics,
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  improving our predictability of forecasts, and just knowing
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  where we're headed with this uncertain time. Yeah.
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  Okay. Okay. Let's talk a little bit more
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  about the financial administrative
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  side.
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  Obviously, you mentioned at the start about a
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  pretty dynamic
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  regulatory
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  environment. Right? And the payer provider dynamic continues
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  to be difficult for some people, I think.
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  Can you tell us a little bit about
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  how some of those things are playing out
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  for you? Yeah. We
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  in my three years at Schoolcraft, we've worked
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  hard to develop a strong relationship with the
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  government payers.
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  Wherein
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  it's w WPS is our MAC, and we're
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  working with the state to improve some of
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  our audit data cost reporting.
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  We've also started having conversations with several of
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  our commercial payers. In fact, we're we're starting
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  to try to have a cadence where once
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  a quarter,
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  we're sitting down with those payers and evaluating
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  our claims data,
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  clean claim rate, accuracy,
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  and then their payment rate to see if
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  we can reduce some of the administrative overhead
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  that's occurring. A lot of our costs to
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  get a claim through
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  and this the cost of being passed to
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  our patients is that administrative overhead. So we're
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  trying to find out find a way to
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  automate, streamline that. And ideal situation would be
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  the payers
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  and the hospital get to a point where
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  we have some sort of similar
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  tool to help us identify
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  inefficiencies
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  to reduce those, but then to get more
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  effective payment
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  for services that are necessary and needed for
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  our community.
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  That's the intent. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. And
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  has there been a change in that
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  conversation, do you think, in the last year
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  or two? Do you feel like things are
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  a bit more positive and people are looking
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  for answers and solutions?
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  You know, I think it's been
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  it's been a trying time in health care
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  this past year. There's been some pretty high
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  profile,
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  things have happened that just
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  I think we all take pause and evaluate
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  what what are we doing here? Are we
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  are we is this the right path to
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  be on? And I know that for us
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  in our small community, we have been having
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  those conversations with the payers to say we
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  need to start coming to the table. Instead
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  of I use the there's a meme out
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  there. It's the Spider Man meme where they're
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  all three pointing each other.
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  We can't be doing that. We need to
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  be talking instead of assigning blame or
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  or saying, hey. This is not working for
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  this reason. Let's come together and collaborate.
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  And we do that with our payers, and
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  we also work with our neighboring small hospitals
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  that are independent.
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  We also collaborate. We we have a a
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  mantra that we we collaborate, not compete because
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  we're so geographically distant from each other that
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  we really don't have a lot of crossover
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  with patients. Unlike an urban or suburban environment
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  where you may have multiple health care systems
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  in the same area,
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  We only have one or two operating in
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  a 100 mile radius. And so collaborating,
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  having conversations with payers,
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  trying to reduce the inefficiencies in the system,
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  that that's our, I think, our main goal
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  right now for the next twelve months. I'm
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  sure
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  in the next year, something will change, and
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  we'll have to adapt our our approach and
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  our strategy. But right now,
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  our strategy is around efficiencies and consolidating
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  our effectiveness
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  in the backdrop of this uncertain time. And
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  and
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  I think when I started in health care
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  fifteen years ago, the mantra was, it's an
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  era of transformational change with the Affordable Care
• 14:10
  Act. Now we're kind of in an era
• 14:11
  of disruption.
• 14:12
  And I think building that resiliency in our
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  team,
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  whether it be through training, education, AI tools,
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  whatever it may be, As a leader, that's
• 14:20
  what we're trying to do is just build
• 14:21
  resiliency in our community.
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  Eric, thank you so much. It's been absolutely
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  lovely talking to you. Thank you. You too.
• 14:27
  Well, appreciate it. Thanks.