Job Abstract

About GW MFA

MFA physicians provide comprehensive patient care, offering one practice for the whole person with 52 medical and surgical specialties. As members of the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences faculty, MFA providers are teachers and mentors for medical students, residents, fellows, and researchers preserving the rich tradition of academics, research, and healing. In addition to maintaining a closely integrated alliance with The George Washington University and The George Washington University Hospital (GWUH), separately owned and operated by Universal Health Services (UHS), the GW MFA has active referring relationships with 12 area hospitals.

The GW MFA’s leading healthcare presence in the DC metro region is complemented by a network of community-based practices in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Given its geographic location in central NW Washington, DC, and proximity to more than 175 resident embassies, the MFA continues to evolve its international clinical outreach.

Position Summary

Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer of The GW Medical Faculty Associates (CEO), the MFA Chief Financial Officer (CFO) provides overall leadership and support of financial operations of GW’s academic physician practice group known as the Medical Faculty Associates (MFA).

As the chief finance and budget leader for the MFA, the CFO has direct responsibility for leading complex operations, managing a team of staff as well as interfacing with partners at the George Washington University and affiliated clinical sites, including senior-level faculty and leadership to drive budget management excellence and financial performance results. This role serves as the primary interface for local activities that are managed centrally overall, including budgeting, financial planning and analysis, cost management strategies, decision support, provider compensation plan administration, and information technologies supporting finance related functions, as necessary.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Other duties may be assigned.

Specifically, major areas of responsibility across the following five dimensions will include:

Strategic Planning and Management

• Serves as the primary business advisor to the CEO;
• Works closely and in partnership with all MFA leadership to enable high performance of the MFA across all missions;
• Actively partners and closely collaborates with key constituents to leverage opportunities and goals;
• Participates in the MFA’s strategic planning efforts with the CEO, and executive leadership team.
• Collaborates with the MFA’s internal and external key stakeholders to develop business plans, monitor operational results, and suggests alternative courses to meet financial expectations.
• Serves as a key participant in the assessment, design, and implementation of the MFA’s strategies related to value-based, accountable care.
• Ensures that the organization fully understands the financial implications of these strategies and leads the development of financial operations to support these initiatives; and
• Collaborates with executives, administrators, academic, and clinical leaders (internally and externally) to develop opportunities for business innovations that enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of institutional management.

Financial Oversight

The CFO will be expected to apply skills, experience, acumen, and an understanding of the business of academic healthcare in all decision-making and strategic planning for growth, revenue enhancement, and expense rationalization, among others. This includes the following responsibilities:

• Plays an important role in facilitating funds flow between the GW SMHS, the MFA, and the GWU Hospital (GWU-H).
• Works collaboratively to lead the various financial activities including development of financial strategy, planning, projections, and budgets that focus on long-term fiscal sustainability.
• Develops models that respond to new financial or operational circumstances.
• Provides insightful analysis of financial results and forecasts that allow for informed decision-making and resource optimization.
• Assists in promoting a culture where faculty and staff understand their individual fiduciary roles and responsibilities.
• Exercises delegated authority with prudent assessment of individual transactions, considering the impact financially and operationally while being mindful of internal controls and setting the cultural tone.
• Directs the analysis and interpretation of financial information throughout the MFA.
• Balances short-term and long-term strategic objectives to maximize the MFA’s financial performance.
• Oversees the monitoring and the reporting of MFA’s financial performance to identify trends and safeguard the assets of the organization; and
• Analyzes rolling forecasts, actual-to-budgeted variances, and unusual trends and proactively communicates with the CEO, the GWU CFO, the MFA Board, and the executive leadership team, and stays informed of significant events that impact the business operations and performance of the organization.

Operational Oversight

Working closing with the CEO and various stakeholders, the /CFO manages the financial operations of the MFA to align with the fiscal and productivity guidelines established while ensuring adherence to all institutional and departmental policies. This includes:

• Oversees and maintains an administrative organizational structure to effectively and efficiently accomplish the MFA’s goals and objectives while appropriately segregating duties and mitigating risk.
• Works collaboratively with clinical and non-clinical leaders to support fact-based decision making in order to achieve greater levels of financially sound practice performance.
• Acts as a change agent, assisting the MFA with the successful implementation of new financial and administrative procedures and systems.
• Serves as a major point of contact for problem resolution in financial matters.
• Serves on various MFA committees, provides insightful, informed, and diplomatic feedback to the committee and communicates updates to appropriate constituents throughout the MFA, as appropriate.
• Leads the development of policies and procedures to govern financial decision-making, including forecasts, expense management, and capital spending to ensure the achievement of financial objectives.
• Develops, operates, and oversees the financial support systems of the organization to ensure that key stakeholders have access to timely, accurate, and reliable information to make fact-based decisions.
• Works with leadership and appropriate owners within the revenue cycle to develop and monitor corporate policies and performance metrics related to all aspects of the revenue cycle, including Patient Access, Patient Financial Services, Health Information Management, and Charge Description Master to create a state of the art, highly reliable revenue cycle.
• Assists in the negotiation of MFA contracts and reviews financial issues concerning contractual relationships between MFA, its physicians, GW University, GWU Hospital, and third-party payors.
• Selects, develops, and manages a high-performing financial leadership team who constantly strives for improvement in performance standards and enables the achievement of the MFA’s goals.
• Determines appropriate department staffing levels based on best practice metrics.
• Communicates openly with staff, faculty physicians, and administration.
• Creates, models, expects, and reinforces a purpose driven culture with high standards of service and performance.
• Develops yearly personnel goals reflecting individual needs and departmental priorities; and
• Recruits, develops, and retains high-performing business and administrative professionals.

Financial Regulatory Compliance

Ensures compliance with all financial regulations governing health care delivery and rules of accrediting bodies. This includes:

• Continually monitors financial operations of the MFA and proposes changes when required; and
• Oversees accounting and finance operations to ensure proper maintenance of financial records and compliance with finance and accounting standards, regulatory guidelines, and reporting requirements.

Performance Improvement

The CFO is responsible for the continuous assessment of administrative financial processes and procedures to maximize operational effectiveness, and for streamlining and simplifying service-related processes. In addition, the CFO will identify the revenue enhancement and/or cost reduction strategies to achieve budgetary and financial goals for the MFA. The CFO shall work to ensure and further develop the following:

• Facilitates and successfully implements changes where needed through effective role modeling.
• Identifies and integrates innovative programs and projects that contribute to stakeholder satisfaction and budgetary goals.
• Conducts accurate, on-going assessment and evaluation of the effectiveness of existing as well as newly implemented programs.
• Solicits feedback from all stakeholders on a regular basis.
• Meets, and in some cases, exceeds all professional, governmental, and regulatory standards; and
• Adheres to MFA and unit-level policies and procedures and safeguards MFA assets.

Minimum Qualifications

Education

• An undergraduate college degree or an equivalent is required.
• A graduate degree in Business Administration or a related field is preferred.

Experience

• A minimum of 10 years of relevant healthcare experience, including at least 7 years of management experience with financial oversight.
• Broad administrative experience across a range of functions, including healthcare finance, provider compensation plan administration, and practice performance.
• Prior professional experience in operational leadership responsibilities in a healthcare finance setting or comparably complex environment; experience with academic medicine is required if applicable.

Physical Requirements

• Walk, bend, twist, and reach above the shoulder frequently in an office setting.
• Must be able to occasionally lift or carry and frequently push or pull up to 20 lbs. as part of the role
• Regularly exposed to healthcare settings that may require personal protective equipment
• Requires manual dexterity to operate a computer keyboard, calculator, copier machine, and other equipment.

Reasonable Accommodation

Consistent with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), as amended, reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position, when such an accommodation does not create an undue hardship for MFA.

EEO Statement

We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.