Community Health Center Leadership – Structure – Finance: An Overview

Community Health Center Leadership – Structure – Finance: An Overview

In this ongoing series, we address Community Health Centers (CHC) and their central role in providing primary health care to the unemployed, underemployed, and part-time employed who are uninsured or underinsured.

Healthcare in America is not a looming crisis.
It is not a pending catastrophe.
American healthcare is in a state of crisis now.
With job and health insurance losses, healthcare for the uninsured and underinsured is a dark waltz with disaster.

If people cannot afford adequate food, clothing, or shelter; then, they certainly cannot afford basic, primary healthcare.

The unemployed, underemployed, and part-time employed who are uninsured or underinsured can receive medical services through local Community Health Centers that are well-led, well-managed, and well-financed. The demand for vital, robust, and financially sustainable Community Health Centers is critical. But what is the key foundation for a vital CHC?

This post addresses that issue:

Leadership – Structure – Finance: An Overview

Integrity (defined)

The ability to understand, and convert into action, as their primary task and duty, the foremost need of the organization –
The ability to see the world as it actually, not as they want it to be (which, of course, is vision, which, in some cases, could lead to illusion).

Leadership Integrity, leads to- Structural Integrity - Selecting and adhering to the top four elements, which leads to - Financial Integrity - Selecting and adhering to predictive indicators.

Leadership Integrity:
The ability to see the world as it actually, not as you may want it to be.

Leadership

The ability to see the world as it actually is, not as you pretend it to be.
1. Do they understand, and convert into action, the foremost governance need of the organization as their first and primary task and duty?
2. Are they demagogic (manipulating, obscuring, and/or distorting)?
3. Not just playing well themselves, but helping others play better…

Structural

The ability to see the world as it actually is, not as you pretend it to be.
1. Do they understand, and convert into action, the foremost structural need of the organization as their first and primary task and duty?
2. Effective business vision
3. Focus on value creation (Human Assets, Expertise, Parameters, and Change)
4. Foster internal forces that encourage progress

Financial

The ability to see the world as it actually is, not as you pretend it to be.
Do they understand, and convert into action, the foremost financial need of the organization as their first and primary task and duty?
1. Positive cash flow …
2. Total physician compensation at 45% of net collections …
3. Total medical group expenses at 88% of total net collections …
4. Internal accounts receivable less than 3 days …
5. External accounts receivable less than 46 days …

The Key Issues
1. Do each of these elements: Leadership, Structure, and Financial, have integrity?

2. Do they understand, and convert into action, the foremost need of the organization - as their first and primary task and duty?

3. Do they have, and convert into action, a one-line job description? (The most difficult of tasks)

4. Do they understand, and convert into action self-executing mechanisms?

5. Do they have, and convert into action, their core competencies?

6. Are their core competencies relevant?

7. Are they effective, or merely efficient, or neither?

8. Are they efficacious?

9. Are they muscle, fat, or cancer?

10. Do they staff from strengths or weaknesses?

Next post: Leadership – Structure – Finance: The Business Model.