All Featured Insights

Balance sheet strength has buffered consumers and businesses from some of the restrictive shock of higher rates. With a relatively brittle revenue model in healthcare, the focus becomes whether, when, and how to restructure operations as balance sheets are spent down.

In the pre-pandemic era, payer-provider partnerships were often focused on creating value by managing costs of care and delivering high-quality care. In today’s more challenging macro-economic environment, these conversations are becoming more direct and practical, with both payers and providers asking hard questions.

The number of not-for-profit hospital rating downgrades has escalated in 2023, suggesting that benefit of the doubt is running out. Hospitals will need to go the extra mile when preparing material for their rating agency meetings.

Medicare Advantage has been a tremendous growth story in recent years. Today, however, new risks are emerging from both providers and regulators that could stall and perhaps even reverse the growth strides health plans have made in the MA market.

Hospital leadership faces an undeniably hard challenge: regaining financial stability, finding a relevant post-Covid competitive vision, and energizing teams with a renewed sense of purpose. But fighting back is the hospital job of the moment.

Hospitals’ financial performance worsened in July as volumes fell, but margins remain improved from 2022. The median Kaufman Hall Calendar Year-To-Date Operating Margin Index reflecting actual margins was 1.3% in July.

After years of monetary tingle, a more restrictive stance from the Federal Reserve is creating a chill. A sustained higher interest rate environment may require finance teams to rethink external capital formation strategies.

In this webinar hosted by Russell Investments, Thomas Jefferson University’s SVP and Chief Investment Officer Alfred Salvato describes the benefits of implementing a strategic resource allocation framework across the organization’s balance sheet assets.

Financial reserves are essential to the sustainability of any college or university. Integrating reserve goals to strategic planning through development of a strategic financial plan helps ensure that sufficient reserves will be available to meet the institution’s needs.

The rating committee is central to the rating process: all rating decisions are made by the committee, not an individual. In her new blog, Lisa Goldstein identifies five things to know about what happens in a rating committee.

Fitch Ratings recently downgraded the United States’ long-term rating. Healthcare confronts a different manifestation of the same pressures confronting the U.S., and the lesson for leaders is that governance and planning systems matter.