Four Ways Healthcare Finance Leaders Can Succeed Through Uncertainty
Editor’s Note: This article is part of Oliver Wyman's ongoing seriesabout the evolving novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Government and healthcare leaders are now predicting a return to pre-COVID "business as usual" may not become reality until late 2021. New financial strategies between now and then for maintaining and driving revenue may be the key to success.
Sam Glick, Partner in Oliver Wyman's Health & Life Sciences practice, recently joined Malinka Walaliyadde, CEO and Co-founder of Alpha Health, to share their views about this and more on a webinar.
Their 50-minute conversation — Four Ways Healthcare Finance Leaders Can Navigate and Recover from COVID-19 — discussed hospital leadership teams' quick pandemic response, considerations and preparations for a return to the new normal, business best practices, and how to prepare for future black swan circumstances.
Memorable Moments
- Sam: “Even after the end of the Great Depression, we saw a generation with habits that had changed long after prosperity had returned to the economy. … We even saw this in 2008 – the data showed that somebody who got their first job in 2008 coming out of school in the financial crisis still to this day is a more conservative investor.”
- Sam: “Instead of moving to predictions, the most successful organizations are making themselves less brittle and more resilient. You may not survive this one. But if you have a supply chain that has only one source in one geography if you are incredibly reliant on a handful of employees who could get sick or take time off, and if you have economics that are brittle where patients or service lines provide all the money for everything and then some, you’re brittle. And at some point, something’s going to break”.
- Malinka: “We believe that the only way to create a true operational fail-safe that can continue performing completely unaffected by external shocks is when you have an automation system and your staff live in the cloud.”
- Malinka: “As the ranks of unemployed Americans exceed 30 million, we will see an unfavorable shift in payer makeup for health systems. … Don’t trade one uncertainty for another.”