Being a successful leader in healthcare requires a wide range of knowledge and skills. When I first enrolled in the Healthcare Administration program, I knew that the financial side of the classes were going to be my Achilles heel. Finances and the business side of things have never been my strong suit. Luck would have it that Financial Management would be my first class in the program, and it was certainly one of the largest hurdles. However, HCA 720 was not my last brush in the financial world of healthcare. The U.S. Healthcare Systems class also taught me about the different payments systems that have been used in American healthcare throughout the decades.  Some examples of these are Fee-for-Service and Value-based Healthcare. The following document is a collection of my thoughts on healthcare costs, barriers to change, and the impacts these have to healthcare providers.

One assignment I found to be particularly useful was the Project Management Budget Problems paper. I was asked to write this during the Healthcare Operations and Project Management course. Coming into a department as the new manager, having only a clinical background, I knew very little about budgeting. Especially from a departmental/corporate level. By the time I got around to taking this class, I had 2 years of management under my belt, so I was starting to feel a little more comfortable with the process. I did find that much of what I hit on in the paper was true within my organization and wish I had known more about the process earlier in my career.