Alexandra Criscione, Director If a payer steers patients away from your health system, what is your discount buying? The payer wants the discretion to designate your health system as out-of-network while retaining your in-network discount. You receive discounted reimbursement while patients receive financial incentives to go elsewhere. Before you sign, ask the direct question: What are you receiving in exchange for the discount? That question gets to a bargain that has

Alexandra Criscione, Director, BDC Advisors If you are a health system CFO, you are likely being asked a harder question than you were five years ago. Not simply: “Can we get the payer renewal done?” But: “Will this renewal sustain the enterprise?” That is a different question. And it requires a different way of thinking. For years, traditional renewal strategies assumed a relatively stable environment: predictable labor costs, manageable inflation, modest annual rate movemen