President's Message:

"Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times."
— Niccolo Machiavelli

Have you noticed we’ve changed a few things in the Metro Philadelphia Chapter?

Time is running out to register - Walk-ins welcome!!

Fall Institute to be held at the Conshohocken Marriott
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Making Connections to Drive Success

Keynote Presentations Connecting Finance to Operations
Rick Bennett, EVP and COO of Crozer Keystone Health System
Gerald Oetzel, CFO of TUHS - Jeanes Hospital

Click here to register.

FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS!: RECENT TRENDS IN MEDICARE BAD DEBT AUDITS

As if it wasn’t already difficult enough, fiscal intermediaries across the country are finding more ways to disallow more of our Medicare Bad Debt claims on audit.  The biggest change in recent times was effected by the CMS joint signature memorandum issued on 5/2/08.  This document prohibits all providers from claiming Medicare/self pay bad debt until all collection efforts have been exhausted by the final collection agency and the account has been deemed worthless, regardless of the Provider’s ability to qualify previously under the MCBD moratorium.  Regardless of challenges that are being or will be made to this ruling, the fiscal intermediaries are auditing according to its dictates.  If your facility has been recognizing Medicare Bad Debt at the time balances are referred to outside collection, then you will have to change your policy – a complex and troublesome process at best.

NEW for 2008-2009!!!!
Special Afternoon Microsoft Office breakout sessions.

HFMA will be offering special afternoon breakout sessions geared towards improving your Microsoft skills beyond what you’ve picked up on your own.  Three sessions will be offered:  Excel: Beyond the Basics, Excel: Analytical Redesign and Power Point/Word: Made Easy & Useful.  We will give you practical examples with step-by-step instructions to allow you to feel confident in replicating the skills learned to your boss and co-workers.  These essential skills will provide the basis for learning more advanced skills at our April 2009 Decision Support Seminar. 

Excel: Beyond the Basics will cover a range of introductory skills that you may have missed in your training or self-learning.  We’ll cover basics like text manipulation (functions like LEFT, MID, LEN, etc.), linking spreadsheets, print formats (header/footers, print dates, file names ,etc.), rounding vs. “Precision as displayed,” autofill lists, absolute vs. relative reference and (in case you didn’t know it already) the “F4” key.

For example, have your ever completed a spreadsheet, checked all of the formulas, and then found that the totals don’t “foot” because of rounding in the “cents,” which you didn’t display on the worksheet?  You can fix this using the “precision as displayed” option, but you need to be aware of other effects and traps of using this option in a spreadsheet.  Learn these at this seminar.

Read more . . .

Metropolitan Philadelphia Chapter of HFMA
HFMA Fall / Spring Workshop Series

The Metropolitan Philadelphia Chapter of HFMA is pleased to offer a workshop series designed to augment the financial managers' understanding of Medicare Cost Reports. Additionally, we are offering simultaneous sessions that will address topics selected to provide a more robust understanding of those topics to today's healthcare financial managers. Specifically, these sessions will address Medical Coding Issues for the non-coder (Fall session) and fundamental Healthcare Finance Issues (Spring session.) This workshop series is designed to give the attendee a practical hands-on application in the Fall session; followed by a more analytical, approach-based application of the Fall topics in the Spring. Please note the following workshops / dates and clear your calendars.

Welcome to our New Members:
The following have joined the Metropolitan Philadelphia Chapter HFMA.

Renew Your Membership: By now you should have received your membership renewal information, if you have not renewed yet, please take the time to do it today.  For your convenience, we are including a link to the membership renewal site: http://www.hfma.org/membership/

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact
Kirk Moyer
215.246.1252
kirk.moyer@marsh.com