HHA 513 Financing Health Systems

A basic understanding of financial decision points, tools, and analysis is imperative for managers, leaders, and healthcare executives to make informed financial and operational decisions. This course is designed to provide health services management students with a comprehensive introduction to the basic principles and applications of healthcare finance. This course provides an operational knowledge of healthcare financial management theory and concepts and, enables students to learn how to develop, apply, and interpret various financial tools and concepts to make better decisions that promote the financial well-being of the organization. The course will cover a broad range of topics, including institutional setting for the delivery of healthcare services, alternative forms of business organization and ownership, the third-party payer system and alternative reimbursement methods, cost classification and cost estimation, pricing and revenues, planning and budgeting, operational and financial management, how healthcare organizations are financed, and capital investment decisions are made. Understanding the various methods for financing health care systems, such as government funding, health insurance, privatization and direct payments will be explored. Experiences emerged from different countries will be highlighted and compared.