Healthcare CFOs’ resting heart rates
How is uncertainty in Washington affecting healthcare CFOs? We took their pulse at this year’s Summit Elevate.
May 19, 2025
May 19, 2025
As my colleague Matt Szaflarski noted in his piece “Know your Medicaid revenue cycle KPIs,” we see the same industry headlines as you do, such as:
- “Hospital merger and acquisition deals dip amid economic uncertainty”—Healthcare Finance News
- “House Committee Proposes Budget Bill With $715B in Medicaid, Other Healthcare Cuts”—MedPage Today
- “Health systems shake up CFOs amid financial pressures”—Becker’s Hospital Review
No one likes uncertainty. No one likes cuts. And certainly no one wants to be shaken out of a job.
We structured and scheduled Summit Elevate, our invitation-only event for healthcare CFOs and senior-level leadership, at exactly the right time. Held April 23-25 at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida, the conference gave us at Kodiak a unique opportunity to take the pulse of the CFOs and senior-level leadership from eight high performing health systems during this unprecedented time in healthcare finance, reimbursement, and revenue cycle. Collectively, their hearts aren’t racing. But their beats per minute are definitely elevated.
We asked them three simple questions:
- How do you think the uncertainty in Washington will impact your financial performance during the rest of 2025?
- Are you or do you anticipate adjusting your reserve model in response to the uncertainty in Washington?
- How useful is Kodiak RCA in helping you manage through the uncertainty in Washington and do your job as a finance leader?
On the first question, seven of eight health systems said they believe the uncertainty in Washington—e.g., potential budget cuts to Medicaid and other federal health programs, stock market fluctuations, tariffs on imported medical devices and pharmaceuticals, reductions in medical research funding, and the restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services—will have a negative impact on their system’s financial performance the rest of the year. The eighth? Uncertain. None of the eight said uncertainty would have a positive effect.
On the second question, five of the eight health systems are standing pat for now; they said they do not anticipate adjusting their financial reserve model in response to the uncertainty in Washington. Two said yes, they are adjusting their reserve model. One said they weren’t sure yet, but it’s a possibility.
On the third question, the eight health systems were unanimous. All eight said Kodiak Revenue Cycle Analytics was “helpful,” “very helpful,” or “extremely helpful” in helping them manage through the chop in Washington and do their jobs. They are among 2,100 hospitals and 300,000 physicians that use Kodiak RCA to manage their net revenue and monitor their revenue cycle performance.
What conclusions can we draw from this pulse check? Events in Washington have elevated their heart rate. But Kodiak RCA and the Kodiak team are controlling their blood pressure.
Read more about what we talked about at Summit Elevate:
