Book Description

Gapenski's Healthcare Finance: An Introduction to Accounting and Financial Management explores how healthcare organizations manage financial operations to optimally provide patient care. This significantly revised edition of one of Health Administration Press's best-selling books introduces the key foundational elements of healthcare finance, including both accounting and financial management. Numerous examples throughout showcase how healthcare finance is practiced in a variety of organizations, including hospitals, medical practices, clinics, home health agencies, nursing homes, and managed care organizations. Authors Kristin L. Reiter and Paula H. Song present the financial management and accounting concepts that are most critical to managerial decision-making. They emphasize not only financial theory and principles but also practical tools healthcare managers can use to make the crucial decisions that promote the financial well-being of their organization. Gapenski's Healthcare Finance examines the current financial environment in which providers operate, with an emphasis on health system design, healthcare insurance, and reimbursement methodologies. Dates, exhibits, references, and resources have been updated throughout. All examples and financial statements reflect current accounting and reporting standards. Extensive updates and content new to this seventh edition include: A discussion of health reform that reflects the current status of the Affordable Care Act; Information on the field's increasing focus on social determinants of health; Tax rates and examples that reflect the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act; A discussion of Medicaid expansion and health insurance exchanges; Coverage of the implications of value-based payment for the revenue cycle; Significant reorganization of the financial accounting chapters to orient students to financial accounting before the book's coverage of the income statement, statement of changes in equity, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows; A new chapter supplement provides expanded analysis of the double-entry accounting system; Amendments to the financial accounting conceptual framework by the Financial Accounting Standards Board; Better differentiation of risk measures of realized vs. expected return distributions In a dynamic environment, healthcare leaders need to practice good financial decision-making for the health of their patients and the financial stability of their organization. From this book, current and future managers will understand the finance problems provider organizations face and how best to solve them.