Sutter Health Care Case Analysis Essay

Partners Healthcare is considering the introduction of real assets into the organization’s portfolio. The analysis will demonstrate the effects of having one risky asset and one risk-free asset in a portfolio. Our analysis will also show that the introduction of real assets can decrease the risk of the hospital’s portfolio. Each hospital in the healthcare system can determine the appropriate portfolio mix based on their desired expected level of return and risk they are willing to accept.

The acquisition and post-acquisition period for Mt. Mercy Hospital/Sister Mary Theresa’s purchase of Abbott Hospital experienced several organizational change issues. Within Dr. Belasen’s corporate communications model “CVFCC,” several quadrants became compromised. During the acquisition period, conflict arose within the realm of Investor Relations and Government Relations. Conflict continued to arise after the acquisition – specifically within the quadrant of Employee Relations.

Health care expenses are a never ending headache that create numerous liabilities. Liabilities are created when goods or services are purchased on credit and obtained through short- term and long- term loans. Health care expenses create liabilities such that payments are made late or no payments are made at all. In some cases, the cost of health care expenses are unaffordable resulting in those type of payments. To prevent large health care debt, many individuals seek health insurance. Health insurance is provided by private insurance companies or by the government. It covers health care expenses and provides the necessary health care. Although, health insurance is necessary it can also be very costly.

1. Their uses of cash were primarily used for paying off debt and investing it in marketable securities. Also they spent some of their cash on fixed assets. Even though their ending cash was lower than the previous year, they were using their cash effectively.

Debt collections in the Medical field affects millions of people from all life styles, it’s a big problem that I don’t see an end to. There are situations that we can control regarding our own health state but there are unforeseen circumstances, which lead to having medical debt. There are laws that protect a consumer but not everyone is aware of the kind of protection. We need to all educate ourselves on medical debt collections and the process.

In my opinion I think that Sutter Health is on the right path. I think that they should implement a plan for how to process charity care and bad credit cases since they are a not-for profit organization. A person with bad credit is unwilling to pay, whereas a person needing charity care is unable to pay. I think this would be important for the admitting clerk to know how to properly handle a situation like this (Unknown, 2006). Also I think that it is important to discuss all financial matters with patients. Ensure to explain the cost of the treatment, what part of insurance will cover their responsibility and payment options. They also need to go into detail

Ever evolving technology, scientific breakthroughs, extended life expectancy, and unemployment often involves leads to a high level of uncollectible accounts within the healthcare industry When a patient receive services provided by a healthcare facility or physician’s office patient financial services gather patient demographics, insurance information, and income information. The information provided by the patient is reviewed to determine their financial status thereby determining their ability to pay for healthcare services. When the patient is deemed, they cannot afford to pay for medical services they determine if the services would be categorized as free services, or a sliding scale/discounted services. If services are provided free of charge or on a discounted rate, then the services are exempt from tax and is categorized as a charitable item thereby the service is recordable under uncollectible items as charity services versus an uncollectible debt.

One financial problem the healthcare industry is facing right now is healthcare collections. Healthcare collections have always been a financial problem to healthcare industries because of nonpayment from the uninsured and individuals who are uneducated about their health plans. Nonpayment to healthcare industries means a loss of revenue. A loss of revenue means that health care industries may run the risk of exhausting their financial resources and become unstable. This financial problem is very typical in the healthcare industry.

Promoting excellent healthcare is very important in every society. With the decrease in public health and the increase cost of medical technology, many healthcare facilities are facing the challenges of patient billing and the inadequate resources to cover the hospital accounts. This is a key problem and issue one predominate hospital face in California. California Sutter Health managed to achieve this desired goal in the accounting system of patient’s hospital billing. California Sutter Health is a not-for-profit health system in Northern California, that includes doctors, hospitals and other health care services.

In 2006, Sutter Health, one of Northern California's largest providers, dedicated to changing the patient finical services announced that it gave staff resources to change the process of patient collections.

It can overall increase productivity and profit in the long-term. For instance, my workplace instills usage of electronic medical records for new and current patients for efficiency, productivity, and accuracy for the long-term of patients dental x-rays and health history. The costs involved are considerable and hard to calculate depending on the fees and licensing. According to, (Health Resources and Services Administration, 2016), a persistent problem is demonstrating a return on investment from an (EHR) implementation is often times challenging and may be even more difficult for smaller practices. The cost and effort involved from staff and management is difficult, but necessary to carry out productivity for implementation of (EHR). Every company practice is different and every practice must adapt to changes of implementing (EMR) for the duration of patient accuracy. Aside from the challenges, cost, and effort of implementing (EMR)’s in health care organizations, there is a desire to generate a return on investment (ROI) from them.

The major difference between healthcare finance terminology and business finance terminology is that these terms focus on factors unique to the health services industry. For example, the provision of health services is dominated by not-for-profit or¬ganizations (such as ours), which are inherently different from investor-owned businesses. Also, the majority of payments made to health¬care providers for services are not made by patients—the consumers of the services—but rather by some third-party payer (e.g., a commercial insurance company or a government program). Even the purchase of health insurance is dominated by employers rather than by the individuals who receive the services. These terms emphasize ways in which the unique features of the health services industry affect financial decisions. The healthcare industry is a service industry. It is not in the business of manufacturing, say, widgets. Instead its essential business is the delivery of healthcare services. It may have inventories of medical supplies and drugs, but those inventories are necessary to service delivery, not to manufacturing functions. Because the business of healthcare is a service, this overview of key healthcare terminology will focus on the practice of financial management in the services industry.

Financial Management: Since the broader healthcare environment was undergoing great changes, Liberty’s price advantage was deteriorating, as was their level of service. Hence the need retain their price advantage and complete on quality and service.

The Computerized Provider Order Entry is effective program to help organization improve quality measures and financial margins. The CPOE is effective program; which monitors a hospitals current performance and calculates methods of improvement. For example, Trinity Hospital a leader in clinical intelligence to track and report across it members hospitals on systems wide quality measures (Balgrosky, 2015). The Clinical Provider Order Entry will help patients compare programs graded by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid and Hospital Quality Assurance. This program will further enhance the patient-centric model because patients will have comprehensive comparison of hospitals to make informed medical decision as to where they would like to receive treatment. The quality measures monitor readmission, complications, patient’s experience surveys and other categories. Patients are interested in receiving health care in top-notched care facilities that address their needs. Consumer needs are very important because translating into referrals by word-of-mouth or rankings. Technology plays a major role in an organization's success with supports Judy Murphy idea of enhancing patient’s health information technology

The intention of this research paper is to further understand the financial statement of four distinct hospitals located in the San Diego, California County. An analysis of the financial report for Sharp HealthCare, Scripps Health, Tri-City HealthCare, and Palomar Health will be briefly discussed individually on each important financial outcome’s Such as: assets, liabilities, revenue, expenses, hospital debt, and investments. To analyze further, a break down between the hospitals assets, liabilities, and revenue will be compared in the paper.