In this episode, BESLER’s President & CEO, Jonathan Besler, provides us with his thoughts on 2024 and his 2025 outlook.
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Learn how to listen to The Hospital Finance Podcast® on your mobile device.Highlights of this episode include:
- Highlights from 2024
- Challenges faced in 2024
- What are we excited about for 2025
- Challenges for our industry in 2025
- Tips for how to best keep up with our ever-changing industry
Kelly Wisness: Hi, this is Kelly Wisness. Welcome back to the award-winning Hospital Finance Podcast. We’re pleased to welcome back BESLER’s President and CEO, Jonathan Besler. In this episode, Jonathan will provide us with his thoughts on 2024 and his 2025 outlook. Welcome back, and thank you for joining us, Jonathan.
Jonathan Besler: Thank you for having me, Kelly. Happy to be here.
Kelly: Well, let’s go ahead and jump in today. So, what were some highlights from 2024? And that can be from a company perspective as well as from the industry.
Jonathan: Sure, sure. Great question. So, 2024 really saw, obviously with the election, a lot of conversation around what to do around the rising costs of healthcare. Obviously, both candidates had varying positions on it. And ultimately, we’ll see what happens with this next administration. I think both parties had some really interesting things to say around the rising cost of healthcare as we continue to see, not just throughout the industry, obviously throughout the country, really affecting each and every American in very different ways, whether it’s medical debt, the rising costs of premiums, access to care. Certainly, we’ve seen some hospital closures over the last coming years. And possibly some of that will continue. Obviously, it will depend on what the administration chooses to do. But I would say that the big highlight from 2024 is the what-if is going to happen. And now we’ll see. The election obviously went through, and we’ll be swearing in a new president here, and then the next four years to really tackle some of these big-ticket issues. So again, from a national perspective, a lot of unknown around what is going to happen with US healthcare and the direction that it’s going to go. Are we going to see an expansion or a contraction of the Affordable Care Act? Certainly, if Harris was elected, she promised to expand, and we’ll see what Trump’s policies have to offer.
From a company perspective, we are certainly not immune to paying attention to what’s happening on a national level. But from a very specific standpoint, here at BESLER, we continue to be focused on what we do best for our clients. And so we’ve spent a lot of time and energy and resources really continuing to invest in our revenue integrity platform and our reimbursement integrity platform. And what I mean by that is that we certainly understand and certainly know, again, from a national standpoint, the contraction that we’ve seen in the financial resources available to hospitals. And so, we really believe that it’s incumbent upon us as a liaison for the hospitals and for an advocate for the hospitals to make sure that the services that they’re performing, they’re adequately being reimbursed for. And so, one of the highlights that we had in 2024 was that we had 10 consecutive months of increased recoveries for our clients within our revenue integrity space. And what I mean by that is that each and every month we outperformed the previous month in terms of what we identified and ultimately what we collected on behalf of the hospitals so they could continue to provide their services to their constituents, invest in their communities, and hopefully ultimately have some relief for their patients and constituents.
From a reimbursement standpoint, we’ve continued to invest in our Omnia platform and working very, very closely with CMS to really bring some of these opportunities to bear. And so back in 2023, we became CMS certified, and throughout 2024, we were actively working with CMS to submit those cost reports on behalf of our clients and really making that process much more streamlined. Again, it really comes down to resource allocation. And candidly, we believe, at BESLER, that the more that we can do to help clients do things more efficiently, the better their use of their own resources to redeploy some of their personnel for higher and better opportunities. And so we are seeing a lot of very good feedback working with CMS and really bringing those opportunities to bear.
Kelly: It certainly was an exciting 2024. So what were some challenges that we faced in 2024? What did you learn, Jonathan?
Jonathan: Sure. Well, again, not to focus too much on the economy, but I do think that it’s been a challenge for a number of people throughout 2024. And obviously, there’s an effect on a macroeconomic level. Has as big an effect from a microeconomic level as well. So, the rising cost of healthcare has certainly been a big consideration for a lot of Americans. Now, just as a country, healthcare-related expenditures account for over 17% of the US GDP. And so, as a society, as a country, I think we really need to take a look at how are these resources being allocated. Are they being used most efficiently? And I do think that that is a challenge for our healthcare community, as candidly, they’re tasked with doing more and more and more for their constituents without the same level of reimbursement that they once had. And so that effect certainly does have its potential negative effects on the communities, on the health of the country. And I do think that continued investment and information and research in this area can hopefully alleviate that pain. Some policy changes, I think, can go a long way. So we are certainly challenged with coming up with a better mousetrap, so to speak, to use that old analogy.
And again, I think with the new administration coming in, hopefully, we’ll have some fresh ideas on how to really help Americans, how to help the communities that everyone lives in. And by way of that, helping the hospitals continue to support those communities in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, we can’t cut our way to progress, but I do believe that bringing down the cost of care will not only help the hospitals but help individual Americans as well. So I think that’s not only a challenge that we’ve seen, but I think that’s a challenge that we’re going to see continue into 2025 and beyond until we can really start to bend that cost curve or at least flatten the cost curve to the extent we can.
Kelly: Yeah. Those make a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing those with us. So, on a better note, what are you excited about for 2025?
Jonathan: Yeah, so despite my apprehension and some of the nervousness that I think I just shared, there is a lot to be excited about. I mean, I think from a development standpoint, from a research standpoint, we’re certainly seeing a lot of new technology entrants into the market, which is really, really interesting. I think with the proliferation of AI, and I know that that could potentially be scary to some, and candidly, I would fall into the camp of let’s walk before we run, but I think, as we’ve seen with technology, sometimes we run a little– we outpace the pace car, so to speak. But I think AI will certainly help reduce some of the administrative costs in the system. And I think when managed appropriately– and that’s not to say we turn everything over to the computers and let them run away with it. But certainly, with knowledgeable and responsible oversight over some of that AI, I think we will start to see some efficiencies gain. And I think there’s a significant, significant improvement to be made there.
Frankly, I’m really excited about some of the conversations that I’m hearing around bringing down the costs of drugs and medications, which, again, continue to be a significant part of the overall healthcare spend. And I think there really is some opportunities, whether it’s expanding the 340B program from a government reimbursement standpoint or just new entrants into the market that are keyed in on and really focused on bringing down the costs of some of the infrastructure that we have in place. And frankly, I think with so many opportunities, it’s really going to be hard to pick just one. But I think if we can continue to look and continue to make incremental improvements in many of these areas, again, whether it’s just flattening the cost curve just a little bit, I think we will see some really outsized results, not only for the industry, for our hospitals and our providers, but we’ll see that again for each and every American.
Kelly: There’s definitely plenty to be excited about. So please tell us what you think will be some challenges for our industry in 2025.
Jonathan: Well, challenges and opportunities, they say that it’s two sides of the same coin. So, I really look at, again, from an efficiency standpoint, I think that we’ll see some…some might look at this as challenges and some might look at it as opportunities, depending on what side of that coin you might be on. But I think we will continue to see some consolidation in the marketplace. I think we’re seeing physician practices start to get larger and larger and more integrated in many ways. And I do think that overall, that’s a good thing for the industry, is we can start to share some of this data. So again, to kind of go back to AI and the large language models and things like that, once we start to get this data really working for us, and one of the ways to do that, again, is to put more data under the tent, so to speak. So, the consolidation in the industry, whether it’s individual providers getting together or provider groups merging and acquiring each other, I think that that is overall a good thing from a delivery standpoint. Again, so long as we don’t lose the personalization of what each of us has come to appreciate with our own clinicians, but also from a hospital perspective. Again, the larger health systems tend to be able to bring down some of that cost to delivery and cost of care. So, I am excited to see a little bit more of that happen. And that’s not to say that I’m looking forward to the eventuality of one gigantic, large health system. And I don’t think that that’s where we’re going to go in this country, because I do think ultimately that we want, and we need competition to keep all the horses running as fast as possible.
Kelly: Sure. Interesting insights. Thank you. So, do you have any tips for our listeners regarding how they can best keep up with our ever-changing industry? For example, what are some things that you do to keep up with everything that’s going on?
Jonathan: Sure. I do think that in the post-COVID world, we’ve seen some resurgence in some in-person conferences, and I think that there are some really, really great ones out there. I would encourage, depending on where you are within the healthcare industry, whether you’re a provider, consultant, where you are on the provider and consultant side, right? We’ve got our reimbursement, we’ve got compliance, we’ve got revenue cycle. I mean, there’s a whole host of different modalities that we can pick or choose, IT and cybersecurity. The nice thing is that I think we’re at the point where there’s really no lack of information out there. And so, it’s really incumbent on us to try to boil down that information as best we can, because obviously, time is of limited quantity. It’s certainly at a premium for us as well as our clients. And so, I do think that keying into a couple really good industry groups and maybe even some of the subgroups within those organizations is really, really helpful. Getting involved, certainly from a committee standpoint. I know that HFMA obviously has many, many opportunities for both in-person events and things, as well as other industry groups.
So, there’s a handful of publications that I really like that I key in on. I think Kaiser Family Foundation does a great job as well. And really, again, discerning that information and finding and picking and choosing what those things are that are really of interest to you, both from a personal standpoint, because obviously each one of us will key in on the things that light up our brains in the ways that we are naturally inclined to. But also from a subject matter expertise standpoint, I really do think that there’s a lot of great information. And we certainly at BESLER try to do the same thing, which is identify some very specific, very tactical information that we can share with our listenership. And so, when they come to us, and they tune in, they listen, they read an article, they’re able to walk away with one, two, three, maybe five very specific pieces of information that they can take, digest, and then deploy within their own career as well. So I think that something that’s really helpful is being able to find those avenues and sticking with them because you just never know whether it’s this month or next month when your boss or a colleague comes in and has a question, and you will have heard an article or listened to a podcast or read an article or read some digest on what that particular topic is. So, the consistency of it and consistently tuning in, I think, is a real differentiator for those careerists.
Kelly: Most definitely. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Jonathan, and for sharing your insights from 2024, as well as your 2025 outlook. We really appreciate it.
Jonathan: Wonderful, Kelly. Thank you. And best wishes for everyone in 2025.
Kelly: Yes, and thank you all for joining us for this episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. Until next time…
[music] This concludes today’s episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. For show notes and additional resources to help you protect and enhance revenue at your hospital, visit besler.com/podcasts. The Hospital Finance Podcast is a production of BESLER | SMART ABOUT REVENUE, TENACIOUS ABOUT RESULTS.
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