Sutter Health Care Case Analysis
Sutter Health Care Case Analysis
ACC 281: Accounting Concepts for Health Care Professionals
Arlene Rivero
May 21st, 2011
Sutter Health Care Case Analysis With the current recession, health care organizations have seen in increase in the inability to collect debt from self-pay, uninsured, and underinsured patients. This has caused a struggle on the organization to meet operational margins, and profits. There are a number of reasons for this new increase in patient debts, the more common are, poor accounting practices, lack of patient information and correct patient demographics. Obtaining the correct patient information plays a large part on non collectable debt because patients are not able to be reached. Even though there are uninsured individuals, “more than 80 percent of uninsured people come from working families (Souza, 2007)”. Many of theses people have the means to pay for hospital services but are not requested to pay out the funds. This paper will discuss how one health care organization, California’s Sutter Health, has taken steps to correct this issue. It will analyze the accounting practices put into place by Sutter Health and the financial achievement the facility has created. This author will also discuss a different solution to the issue of debt collection for self-pay patients as well as an opinion concerning the actions taken by Sutter Health. Sutter Health is a not-for-profit health system that provides health care to over 100 Northern California cities and towns (Souza & McCarty, 2007). Sutter Health is composed of hospitals, physician organizations and other health care service providers that share resources and expertise to advance health care quality. They have grown from a small independent health care facility in Sacramento to one of the largest health care providers today. Due to the increase in costs and the inability to collect payments, there have been many attempts to repair the budgeting and patient
ACC 281: Accounting Concepts for Health Care Professionals
Arlene Rivero
May 21st, 2011
Sutter Health Care Case Analysis With the current recession, health care organizations have seen in increase in the inability to collect debt from self-pay, uninsured, and underinsured patients. This has caused a struggle on the organization to meet operational margins, and profits. There are a number of reasons for this new increase in patient debts, the more common are, poor accounting practices, lack of patient information and correct patient demographics. Obtaining the correct patient information plays a large part on non collectable debt because patients are not able to be reached. Even though there are uninsured individuals, “more than 80 percent of uninsured people come from working families (Souza, 2007)”. Many of theses people have the means to pay for hospital services but are not requested to pay out the funds. This paper will discuss how one health care organization, California’s Sutter Health, has taken steps to correct this issue. It will analyze the accounting practices put into place by Sutter Health and the financial achievement the facility has created. This author will also discuss a different solution to the issue of debt collection for self-pay patients as well as an opinion concerning the actions taken by Sutter Health. Sutter Health is a not-for-profit health system that provides health care to over 100 Northern California cities and towns (Souza & McCarty, 2007). Sutter Health is composed of hospitals, physician organizations and other health care service providers that share resources and expertise to advance health care quality. They have grown from a small independent health care facility in Sacramento to one of the largest health care providers today. Due to the increase in costs and the inability to collect payments, there have been many attempts to repair the budgeting and patient
References: Cledue. (2009, November) Up front collections: A hospital’s lifeline. Healthcare Finance News, retrieved May 19, 2011 http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/front-collections-hospital%E2%80%99s-lifeline Victoria Colliver. (2008, February) Unisured pay more to hospitals: They’re charged higher rate than patients on Medicare, study says. San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved May 19th, 2011 Margie Souza, & Brent McCarty. (2007, September). From bottom to top: how one provider retooled its collections. Healthcare Financial Management, 61(9), 66-73. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1338108431). MedAssets; Sutter Health Selects MedAssets Patient Bill Estimation Solution to Improve Collections and Help Consumers Understand Their out-of-Pocket Cost Anonymous. Investment Weekly News. Atlanta:Jun 5, 2010. p. 200 www.medassets.com