Before you can establish the organizational thought platform that best guides your hospital forward, you will need a leadership team that is committed to creating a “listening and learning” healthcare company.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

During times of financial challenge, hospitals tend to aggressively cut back on both planning and the execution of overall strategy. But is this the right road for hospitals to take at this time?

For the Federal Reserve, a soft landing means we arrive at the 2% inflation target without a recession. For healthcare, a soft landing is operating and investment entity recovery that stabilizes credit positioning and facilitates capital formation.

C-suites across America are moving to stronger measures to assure the financial survivability and competitiveness of their organizations. Data and analysis suggest that reductions in force are among the measures being taken today.

As organizations prepare for rating agency presentations, financial performance will continue to occupy much of the agenda. But analysts also will want an update on long-term strategies as performance stabilizes and the industry resets to a new status quo.