As the nation’s premier membership organization for healthcare finance leaders, the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) is committed to helping its 38,000 members via education, analysis, resources and networking opportunities. Members include CFOs, controllers, accountants, hospitals, managed care organizations, physician practices, accounting firms and insurance companies.
“Working with a broad cross-section of stakeholders,” states the organization’s About page, “HFMA identifies gaps throughout the healthcare delivery system and bridges them through the establishment and sharing of knowledge and best practices.”
HFMA operates on the chapter, regional and national levels and offers several membership categories including individual, physician, health plan leaders, university faculty and student (full-time students enrolled in accredited undergraduate or graduate programs).
The organization specializes in critical areas and trending information for healthcare finance leaders: education, publications, forums, employment, marketplace and industry initiatives.
Education
Members are encouraged to absorb a diverse offering of conferences and seminars, webinars, e-learning, certification and even on-site training for teams managed by healthcare finance leaders.
The organization’s National Payment Innovation Summit takes place February 21 – 23 in Denver while its annual conference is scheduled for June 24 – 28, 2018 at the Venetian-Palazzo Sands Expo in Las Vegas. In addition, HFMA has upcoming seminars in San Francisco (March 7 – 9) and San Diego (May 2 – 4) with two tiers of education:
- Essential Seminars such as Bundled Payment Bootcamp, Revenue Cycle Essentials & KPIs, and Medical Cost Reporting
- Master Sessions including Building a Performance-Based Value Model that Drives ROI, Cost Accounting and Financial Analysis Strategies Under Population Health, and Beyond Big Data: Developing a Business Intelligence and Analytics Practice
The group also presents Live Webinars and On-Demand Webinars.
Furthermore, healthcare finance leaders can explore comprehensive education tools such as E2 Learning for Organizations and eLearning Self-Study for Individuals.
Finally, HFMA offers a range of certifications including Certified Revenue Cycle Management Representative, Certified Healthcare Financial Professional and Certified Specialist Accounting and Finance.
Publications and New Media
HFMA publishes the monthly HFM magazine as well as two excellent blogs (HFM and Leadership), three newsletters, four e-bulletins and several forums (e.g. CFO, Legal & Regulatory and Revenue Cycle). Qualified healthcare finance leaders are invited to submit articles (2,000 – 2,500 words) focusing on “practical steps readers can take to improve performance in their organizations.”
Careers for Healthcare Finance Leaders
Employment resources include the Career Center, Job Bank (for job seekers and employers), Subscribe to Career Opportunities and careers at HFMA. The Career Center has information about current jobs, education, certification and a Professional Staff Career Self-Assessment.
The latter takes individuals interested in related careers through a checklist, mentoring resources, the identification of assets and transferable skills, understanding required competencies and a link to the membership options.
The Marketplace tab of the HFMA site presents the Buyer’s Resource Guide, Peer Review Program (for business solutions), and detailed descriptions of the integrated Map application for hospitals and health systems, physician practices and related businesses to improve performance in revenue cycle management: Map Keys (how to measure revenue cycle performance), Map Event (a link to the 2018 Revenue Cycle Conference) and Map Award (how to garner recognition).
Industry Studies and Initiatives
HFMA produced numerous reports such as:
- HFMA’s Value Project: Managing the Transition to Value — a three-part series
- HealthCare 2020 — a four-part series examining how to prepare for major healthcare market trends over the coming years: “Part 1: Transition to Value,” “Part 2: Consumerism,” “Part 3: Consolidation,” and “Part 4: Transformative Innovation.”
- Healthcare Dollars & Sense — a three-part series about interacting with patients
- Patient Friendly Billing — three reports promoting “clear, concise and correct patient-friendly financial communications”
HFMA also publishes research studies including “Hospital Mergers & Acquisitions,” “HFMA Compensation Surveys” and “HFMA Key Financial Statistics and Ratio Medians.”
Finally, HFMA engages regulatory agencies and sometimes issues letters to institutions including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Internal Revenue Service and Financial Accounting Standards Board.
The Healthcare Financial Management Association presents comprehensive solutions for healthcare finance leaders devoted to a variety of financial services. Those wishing to outsource their revenue cycle management are encouraged to learn about Optio’s proven record of success in delivering favorable returns on investment and brand protection with a foundation of compliance, certification, data security and collections technology.
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