Critical Access Hospitals

Strengthen the framework of your rural healthcare operations with guidance and strategy from industry advisors—so you can focus on your patients and community.

Critical access hospitals are essential to their communities, providing crucial services where there is a need and relieving the pressure on rural hospitals. They face similar challenges to other healthcare entities, yet they tend to have fewer resources than large hospitals. Thus, it’s important for them to develop strong, efficient internal processes for sustaining a viable cash flow, maintaining data integrity, optimizing daily operations and providing quality patient care.

Healthcare industry advisors can help critical access hospitals attain this strong internal framework with greater confidence, allowing them greater opportunity to focus on improving patient care and ensuring they’re providing for their communities.

There’s a lot to consider, from operating costs and process flow to effectively managing regulatory requirements in an efficient healthcare practice. An experienced advisor can perform an assessment of operations to identify inefficiencies that can be improved upon with process. And they can help the hospital and healthcare operations select ideal technology solutions to either optimize current processes or add capabilities, like real-time data analytics, that will help them optimize on a daily basis.

For many CAHs, there’s a great need to adopt new technologies like this to meet patient needs as healthcare becomes more digitized. With the right technology, these hospitals can do more than meet expectations, however. They can use data to improve patient care, monitor performance and quality, and manage risk in several areas of their operations. For some, adopting this technology will require a digital transformation, and consulting with professionals who understand the industry is critical to selecting the right solutions.

Another key challenge for CAHs and other healthcare entities is cybersecurity. Hospitals need proper planning, protection and policies to ensure patient data is secure and their systems aren’t susceptible to attack. In addition, they need optimized revenue cycle and compliance with Medicare reimbursement.

Why Choose Eide Bailly to Help Your Critical Access Hospital

In the background of these significant challenges are functions like finance, regulatory compliance, reimbursement, human resources and more.

Above all, patient care is the most important. However, without a reliable internal framework, these hospitals can’t be the resource their communities need. Working with advisors who can help them realize their goals with patient care, financial stability, cybersecurity and operational efficiency can help them focus on serving their communities. Our experienced professionals understand your challenges. We’ve been working with critical access hospitals for more than 20 years. We can help you strategize for stability, security and quality care for decades to come.

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What Our Clients Say

The team at Eide Bailly really cares about our people. They realize that we are so engrained in our day-to-day, where Eide Bailly works with small organizations and large organizations. They have a little more of a pinpoint on what’s going on with reimbursement, so we rely heavily on the team at Eide Bailly."

I’ve attended every CAH Conference that Eide Bailly has hosted, going back to 2013. As the CFO of a Critical Access Hospital, having a company like Eide Bailly, that has staff that are very highly regarded nationally for their knowledge and expertise in rural healthcare, and specifically with CAHs, makes this conference one of my top priorities every year. They always make this event well worth the time and money to attend."

What We Offer

Revenue Cycle

As reimbursement moves to value-based models, the need for tracking and monitoring your revenue cycle is critical. Independent advisors can help you collect all of your revenues for the services you work hard to provide. Revenue cycle professionals have many areas of required reporting and compliance to help you optimize the integrity of your revenue cycle.

Medicare/Medicaid Cost Reports and Reimbursement

Your Medicare cost report is more important to the financial success of your organization than you might think. It’s the way Medicare, and for some, Medicaid, determines reimbursement for many services you provide as a critical access hospital. Too often, CAHs simply update last year’s Medicare cost report. Preparing a cost report should involve more than reiterating last year’s filings with this year’s data. Cost reports can also provide insight about opportunities for improvement, like areas of improved compliance and possibilities for increased Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement. Annual assistance with the preparation or review of your Medicare cost report can help you increase your reimbursement, identify possible risks and make you feel more confident about your Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement.

Eide Bailly’s reimbursement specialists understand how important your Medicare cost report is to your financial success. We’ll take time to understand your hospital operations to help ensure proper Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement under cost-based rules. We personalize our service, obtaining quality data and completing your cost report on time—not just in time.

Operational Strategy and Process Improvement

Healthcare organizations are operating in challenging environments—from moving to value-based reimbursement to adapting to new technologies all while cost-cutting reaches diminishing returns. These factors make developing and maintaining a strong operational strategy mission critical.

Business advisors can help you optimize care resources to improve your financial and operational performance to become a market leader and deliver population health to your community. Business advisors can also help establish a sustainable system based on your data to assist your team with identifying opportunities and bringing them to fruition. The easy-to-navigate improvement methodologies are designed for clinics, hospitals, senior living and outpatient facilities.

Capital, Budgeting and Finance Strategy

Any time a healthcare organization is considering a significant change such as new service lines, remodeling or rebuilding, it is crucial to make the right strategic financing decisions. How will you structure the debt? What impact will it have on return on investments? What is the best source of funding? How will it affect your long-term financial viability? By answering these questions to identify sources of capital and credit, strategic financing professionals can help you feel confident in your decisions.

Strategic financing professionals provide the following financial strategy and related services:

Board education
Strategic planning facilitation
Forecasted financial statements
Pro forma analysis
Debt capacity studies
Lease versus purchase analysis
Departmental budget development and training
Physician demand modeling
Market demand studies

Our healthcare team has in-depth experience working with healthcare organizations nationwide to assist them in making the right strategic financing decisions, as well identifying funding sources.

340B Compliance

As part of participation in the 340B program, healthcare entities are subject to audits by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Should an audit result in corrective action, you may need to repay vendors, change your policies and procedures or be removed from participation in the program.

Eide Bailly understands 340B requirements and the elements of compliance identified by HRSA. Our team reviews all 12 elements of compliance with you to ensure that you maintain eligibility in the program. We provide you with a compliance report to help you prepare for a HRSA audit, as well as recommendations for improvement. In addition, we can be on-site to help you quickly respond to a corrective action plan from a HRSA audit.

Community Health Needs Assessment

In order to maintain tax-exempt status, hospitals exempt under 501(c)(3) are required to conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) every three years. Failure to comply with the CHNA rules can result in $50,000 in excise taxes and potential loss of 501(c)(3) status. The requirements of the process are clearly defined by the IRS and require publicly reporting the findings on tax returns and its website.

While performing a CHNA can be a time-consuming process, it can also provide a hospital with meaningful information about the health issues important to its community members. Working with a professional can help ensure the hospital meets the IRS requirements while benefiting from meaningful interactions with the community.