Hospital Services
Understand What Is Driving Your Hospital’s Margin.
Revenue, expense, volume, denials and cost per case, examined side by side so leadership can see where pressure really sits.
Questions this work helps answer
- Is a weak quarter temporary or structural?
- Why is margin falling even though volume is rising?
- Is expense growth outpacing revenue growth, and in which categories?
- Where is revenue leaking through denials, charge capture or slow billing?
- What should we investigate before we cut costs?
What we typically look at
- Revenue, expense, margin and cash trends over several periods
- Cost per case and revenue per case, by service line where the data allows
- Labor, supply and purchased-service costs, split into price, volume and mix
- Revenue cycle indicators such as denial rate, clean claim rate and days in accounts receivable
- Medicare cost reports and other public benchmarks, with their limits stated
How it works
- Understand. We start with the decision you are facing and the questions behind it.
- Gather. We bring together the relevant data, documents and public information.
- Analyze and investigate. We look for patterns, problems, opportunities and likely causes, and we say what the evidence does and does not establish.
- Evaluate. We compare options and scenarios, including their trade-offs.
- Recommend. We translate the findings into clear priorities and next steps.
What you receive
A written summary of what we found, the evidence behind each finding and prioritized recommendations. Depending on what you need, we can also provide models, dashboards, presentations or implementation plans.
Guides to read first
These plain-language guides from our Blogs explain the questions behind this work, with their sources.
Hospital financial performance
- Why Higher Patient Volume Does Not Always Improve Hospital Financial Performance
- How to Distinguish Temporary Financial Pressure From Structural Problems
- The Financial Warning Signs Hospital Leadership Should Investigate Early
- How Labor Expense Changes Can Affect Operating Margins
- Why Revenue Growth Can Mask Deteriorating Performance
- How to Evaluate Hospital Expense Growth Against Revenue Growth
- What Hospital Executives Should Investigate Before Cutting Costs
- How to Build a More Complete Picture of Hospital Financial Performance
Revenue cycle and operations
- How to Investigate Hospital Revenue Leakage
- What Denial Trends Can Reveal About Revenue Cycle Operations
- How to Identify Potential Bottlenecks in the Revenue Cycle
- How Supply Costs Can Affect Hospital Performance
- What to Investigate When Labor Costs Rise Faster Than Volume
- How Operational Inefficiencies Can Create Financial Pressure
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take and what does it cost?
It depends on the scope and the data available. After a first conversation we describe the approach and agree what is in scope before any work begins.
Do you need patient information?
Reviews like this generally work from aggregate financial, operational and public data. If a question would require patient-level data, we would discuss how to handle it before anything is shared.
Is this an audit?
No. It is an investigation of performance and its causes. It is not a financial audit, and it is not legal, tax or compliance advice.
Talk to us about hospital financial performance review
Tell us what you are trying to understand or decide, and we will tell you how we would approach it.