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Micro Case Study: Strategic Planning in the Current Environment
18. You have been nominated to serve on your organization’s strategic planning
committee. You are informed that this type of planning is iterative and involves several
phases. You view this as an exciting opportunity as you know the importance of such
planning.
What are the phases of strategic planning? What are the desired outcomes of
the process?
Discussion Points
The strategic planning process includes:
o Identifying the organization’s current position including its mission,
vision, and long‐term goals
o Conducting an internal and external assessment and comparing the
organization’s condition against those findings
• Often called a SWOT analysis
The strategic planning process includes:
– Identifying strategies
– Selecting alternatives
– Gaining acceptance of the preferred alternatives
– Preparing plans to carry out strategies
– Assigning responsibilities
– Implementing and monitoring results
Once the planning begins you are specifically asked to lead the team that will conduct
an “environmental assessment”. What are you asked to do? How do you proceed? What
is the relation of the strategic planning and environmental analysis to budgeting?
Discussion Points
Environmental Assessment is an examination of what’s happening both
internally for the organization and externally in the community or region
surrounding the organization.
– It may include an:
• Analysis of regulations at State and Federal levels and their impact
on the organization.
• Appraisal of labor market issues including ability to recruit
clinicians and physicians
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Environmental Assessment may include an:
o Assessment of the economy, employment, and business factors within
the community and/or region.
o Evaluation of reimbursement mix and changes.
o Comparison of the organization’s performance to its peers and others in
the region or comparable entities nationwide.
o Analysis of the current, past, and potential future customers based on
demographic data for the service area.
o Understanding of what the competitors in the region or market may be
considering or are doing.
o Review of performance indicators: patient satisfaction, financial ratio
analysis, volume and outcome reports, etc
The budget incorporates the strategic and operating plans for the organization,
both in terms of the revenues and expenses, as well as the statistical volumes
and resources associated with the plan.
o It also provides a framework for setting priorities, securing and allocating
resources efficiently, and controlling costs
The budget summarizes a set of expectations integrating the impact of
environmental factors and management decisions.
Micro Case Study: Budgeting Training for Managers
19. You are responsible for assisting managers in various departments to develop and
manage their budgets. These colleagues are not as familiar with the budgeting process
as you are. You want to provide some training in the budget process and so you
schedule a budgeting orientation meeting to provide an overview of the budgeting
process.
Develop the outline of your presentation – be sure to include the role of
department/unit business plans in the budgeting process.
Discussion Points
Budgeting Basics – the steps:
• Establish goals and objectives
• Determine the budget calendar
• Distribute budget instructions, input forms, and projected inflation rates
• Obtain historical data on costs and volumes by accounting periods
• Analyze internal and external forces that could affect historical patterns
• Project the volume of activities (patient visits, tests, surgeries) using all the
above information — a total budget will include statistics, operations defining
expense and revenues, capital, and cash flows
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• Project expenses and revenues
• Determine the other capital needs (equipment, debt service, and working
capital)
• Establish revenue and rates schedule, net of reductions from revenue required
to generate sufficient cash to cover the operating costs and capital needs
• Submit the budget if required to others for final approval
Micro Case Study: Finance Staff Training
20. You have been asked by Human Resources to serve as an internal trainer for finance
staff development activities. You are interested in this role and decide that as a first step
you will enroll in the current in‐house finance training to understand the content
presented. Across several weeks the following questions are presented. As diligent
participant, you dive in and attempt to answer the questions:
a. Identify and explain the different types of budgets:
What are they?
What are their different purposes?
How are they related to one another?
Discussion Points
Three main types of control budgets used in the budgeting process:
• Operating Budget
• Capital Budget
• Cash Budget
The operating budget places responsibility for meeting budget targets on departmental
managers, where greater direct control of resources resides.
Within the operating budget itself, there are three main types of budgets–
statistical, revenue, and expense budgets
Capital Budget:
The capital budget is an annual process to estimate the resources committed for
new projects, equipment, and facilities.
Generally a minimum of two components: maintenance capital and strategic
capital.
The cash budget is a product of the operating and capital budget.
This budget predicts the cash flow and cash availability, and the income
generated from operations and other sources of cash.
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b. Identify and explain the methods for determining operating revenue.
Discussion Points
Determining the operating revenues is a critical starting point for any budget.
The projection of any operating revenues directly affects net income, some
capital expenditure estimates, and cash flow estimates
Three approaches:
Estimate of Demand
Past Activity
Estimate the Number of Procedures or Patient Visits
c. Identify and explain the typical components of an expense budget in a healthcare
provider organization?
Discussion Points
The expense budget accounts for the quantities and types of resources to be used to
achieve the projected statistical volumes.
Includes:
o labor,
o supplies,
o books/subscriptions
o dues
o education and travel expenses
o maintenance contracts,
o telephones, and
o other resources used in the department
d. Identify and explain the techniques for 1) developing and 2) evaluating a capital
budget.
Discussion Points
Capital Budgeting
The capital budget is an annual process to estimate the resources committed for
new projects, equipment, and facilities.
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Individual capital projects may span several years due to the time requirement
to develop and implement the project.
Capital projects may involve the start‐up or acquisition of a new practice,
service, or facility.
Expenditures are classified as capital based on expected benefits of two or more
years and a minimum investment set by the organization.
The capital budget control process should consider a careful evaluation of each project
appropriate to the size and complexity of a project.
The following six components of information may be used to evaluate a capital project:
Alternatives Available
Benefit Data
Resources Available
Prior Performance
Cost Data
Risk Projection
For developing the capital budget, there are generally a minimum of two components:
maintenance capital and strategic capital
Three common capital budget evaluation techniques:
Payback method
Net present value method
Return on investment (ROI) method
e. Explain how an organization utilizing the following strategies to derive needed capital
for financing. What are the benefits and risks o f each strategy?
• Long‐term debt
• Equity financing
• Joint ventures
• Capital lease financing
Discussion Points
Strategic capital involves the expansion of existing programs, the initiation of
new programs and services, or both
It is common for organizations to identify more potential uses for capital dollars
than the cash projections can support. Funding the capital needs may exceed the
cash available and require the organization to consider incurring debt
o Debt is usually evidenced by instruments such as bonds, notes, and
mortgages
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Line of Credit: Are a source of financing however they are typically used to meet
operational needs rather than to meet capital equipment or facility needs.
o Long‐term debt
o Equity financing
o Joint ventures
o Capital lease financing
Long‐term debt is most often obtained via a debt issue in the form of long‐term
bonds, usually tax‐exempt finance offerings
The following two types of equity financing are available:
o Internal equity financing
o External equity financing
In response to the increasing cost‐of‐debt financing and the shrinking supply of
available capital in recent years, hospitals and medical practices have begun to
look for other sources of capital.
o The one vehicle that is becoming increasingly popular as a source of
outside capital is the joint venture
A lease arrangement provides for the payment and ownership of a capital asset
as a contractual obligation executed over time, rather than at the time of
possession. The parties involved in a lease include the user of the equipment,
the lender, and the leasing company.
f. Identify and explain the components of a cash budget. How are these interrelated?
Discussion Points
The cash budget is a product of the operating and capital budget.
o This budget predicts the cash flow and cash availability, and the income
generated from operations and other sources of cash
o Prepared after the revenue, expense, and capital budgets have been
prepared.
Cash budget components:
o Total Cash Available.
o Total Cash Disbursements.
o Total Cash Needed.
Interrelationship of Budgets
o All three of these budgets are highly interrelated.
o The operating plan impacts the capital budget, which in turn impacts the
operating budgets.
o The operating budgets determine cash availability that in turn influences
the capital budget.
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o All three of the budgets should be prepared and validated before the
annual budgets are adopted.
g. Define and provide examples of the following cost behaviors:
• Variable
• Fixed
• Semi‐variable
• Semi‐fixed or stepped variable
Discussion Points
Variable cost.
• Variable costs vary, in total, more or less in direct proportion to
volume.
• An example is the relationship between supply costs and
outpatient visits or patient days. For most healthcare
organizations, about half of supply costs will vary directly with
volume
Fixed cost pattern.
• These are costs that, in the short run, do not change with changes
in volume.
• Examples include depreciation, long‐term lease expense, or
amortization of any incurred financing costs.
Semi‐variable cost pattern.
• These are costs that vary in direct relation to volume after a
minimal level of activity has been reached.
• An example of semi‐variable cost behavior in healthcare
organizations is the telephone expense, whereby a monthly
access and service charge is paid initially, no matter what the
volume is, and then each time a long distance or local phone call
is made an additional charge is assessed.
• Semi‐variable costs exhibit the behavior of fixed costs with a
variable cost component
Semi‐fixed or stepped variable.
• These are costs changing with volume, but not in direct
proportion to the volume; rather, they follow a stair‐step pattern.
• An example of this in a hospital setting would be salary cost in an
acute staffing area.
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h. Identify and explain key productivity and evaluation criteria
Discussion Points
Productivity Measurement and Evaluation
One of the objectives of the budgeting and reporting process is to identify
areas where corrective action may be appropriate.
Specifically, management must determine that resources are being used as
efficiently as possible.
Key evaluation Focus – Sample Approaches:
Labor is generally the single biggest expense component of a healthcare
provider, and it is therefore critical to measure and evaluate productivity on an
ongoing basis.
Often, it is possible to compare a department’s statistical profile with that of
similar departments, with national or regional averages, or with standards
developed using management (industrial) engineering techniques.
o It is also possible to modify the standard, such as the traditional patient
day, using any of the available patient acuity measurement systems to
produce a hybrid weighted patient day.
Although comparable data from other institutions may be impossible to obtain,
weighted patient day volumes could be collected and compared internally over
time to develop acuity and productivity trend data for use in staffing models and
decision‐making
Because of the significance of labor expense for most healthcare organizations, it
is also common for management to implement a separate labor productivity
monitoring process.
Sample reporting mechanism
o Each variable cost center will be assigned a primary workload statistic
associated with an equivalent labor statistic.
o The labor statistic assigned is usually based on industry benchmarks that
have been derived from high performing organizations.
o Each reporting period, the system reports "earned" labor hours, based on
actual workload units incurred during the period, to actual labor hours.
The reporting path is similar to responsibility reporting.
o Department managers explain variances to divisional leaders who report
up to senior management.
o The effect is to encourage high efficiency standards throughout the
organization.
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Micro Case Study: Monthly Financial Reporting
21. As a finance manager you are asked to assist different department managers with
their departmental monthly financial reporting. The monthly reports are prepared for
the organization’s executives so that they in turn may report to the board. There are
three departments you have been assigned to assist: radiology, house keeping and the
new outpatient day surgery center.
What is the monthly reporting process? What data needs to be gathered? How
do you believe the reporting should be structured?
Discussion Points
Management reporting can be effectively utilized in a budget process via
responsibility reports.
o Responsibility reports include information on statistics and
revenues and expenses for each cost center or division.
o They should be sent to each department head and each
supervising vice president for those areas that they directly
supervise.
The responsibility reporting process is pyramid shaped, in which each
department head who supervises more than one department receives an
actual financial assessment, a budget versus actual, and the variances
associated with the budget for that period.
o On a monthly basis, these department heads provide explanations
for their variances and send them to the vice presidents who
supervise their direct departments.
o The vice presidents, in turn, review the explanations, and then
send their cumulative explanations to the chief executive officer
for final review.
o Once the CEO has determined that the variances have been
adequately explained, the significant variances can be presented
to the board of directors.
Micro Case Study: Ratios!
22. Financial managers utilize ratio analysis in the performance of their responsibilities.
What are the uses of ratio analysis, i.e. exactly what do ratios tell you and allow you to
do?
Explain what the following ratio categories measure and provide an example of a ratio in
each of the categories:
Profitability ratios.
Liquidity ratios.
Activity ratios.
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Capital structure ratios.
Discussion Points
Ratio analysis: a good measure of the present state of an organization’s
financial health.
• The Uses of Ratio Analysis?
o Summarization of financial data
o Assessing short‐ and long‐range financial plans
o Assessing debt capacity
o Monitoring debt covenant compliance
o Pricing of services
o Strategic analysis
Profitability ratios generally deal with the income statement,
revenues and expenses, and how those relate to the organization’s
financial health and include:
o Return on total assets
o Return on equity
Liquidity ratios. Liquidity ratios identifies assets are available to
meet your short‐term obligations, and includes
o Current ratio
o Quick ratio
o Acid‐test ratio
Activity ratios. Measures the relationship between revenue and
assets and include:
o Total asset turnover
o Fixed asset turnover ratios
o Current asset turnover r
o Inventory turnover ratio
Capital structure ratios. These ratios are becoming one of the most
important types of analyses because more and more facilities are
incurring more debt as they posture for the future. This group of
ratios include
o The equity financing ratio
o The cash flow to total debt ratio
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