Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. My name is Chanel Banger and I'm currently recording live at the 12th annual CEO CFO round table in Chicago and sitting down with Shyam Ferdasi, the CFO of Scion Health Watertown Regional. Shyam, Shaym, thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Perfect. Well, to get us started, could you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background? Yes. Hi. My name is Ashm Fordassy. I actually been in health care finance for quite some time. I was in the military for about 8 years from the marines to the army and always have had a passion for health care and finance. So I tried to combine the 2. I came out, started, working in UnitedHealth Group. I've worked in the PBM side. And then as most recently, I was the senior director head of finance and strategy for Centene for their state of Florida health plan. And my current role, I shifted over to the provider side, which they like to say is fun. It's the good side. It's exciting. It's challenging. I'm the CFO for Watertown Regional Hospital, part of Sion Health. Excited to be here. Perfect. Well, to get into the meat of the podcast a bit, could you tell us about what your growth strategy is for the next couple of years? Yes. You know, it's, it's kinda tough to say that right now. You know, we're coming out of a pandemic and the health care landscape is shifting so much and especially with a lot of new entrons in the market with Medicare Advantage Plans, Medicare. I think for right now, our main focus is to really focus on quality and really grow from there. I mean, you know, patient care, patient safety comes first. So thinking about quality metrics and really aligning our financial goals to quality. I mean, if you take care of the patients, if you provide them quality care, if you provide them services that they need in their community local to them, finances will follow. So that's kinda where our approach is. Bring the care, bring the patient, all all that care to the local community. And that's being a community hospital. That's, like, our main goal right now. Absolutely. Now moving forward, could you please tell us about the most exciting or impactful initiative or project that you're currently working on? Yes. I love this question. You know, I am really trying to change the traditional CFO landscape. Having the PBM background, having the pair background, not being on the hospital, I'm trying to combine it all. I think there's been a lot of focus on, you know, denial management, revenue cycle, AI. And, you know, again, everybody's really hyping up the AI, but at the end of the day, it's basics, it's foundation, how you, realize contracts. So what I'm doing is I've actually put together a revenue 101 kind of playbook together, which not just takes in the day to day revenue cycle that we see at hospitals. We're also looking at how we contract, how we collaborate with payers, how we collaborate with other local hospitals and partners, whether you have JV boards, whether you're in other, joint ventures, or whether you're just, you know, wanna make sure you take care of your patients better. So I've been putting together a revenue 101, playbook, and, hopefully, that'll kinda help us and help the providers and hospitals in the landscape. Hopefully, having to have it finished by quarter 1 of next year and more than happy to share across the health care provider landscape to see where we can collaborate on further opportunities to better align care for our patients. Got it. Got it. Now with your, colorful background in finance and military and, executive leadership, I am interested to hear your perspective on what you think the most important thing a healthcare executive should do now in order to make sure that their organizations are successful in the future? Yes. Absolutely. I think we are in in uncharted territory. Right? Again, the pandemic really opened up our eyes to getting rid of those siloed roles at the executive level. I mean, CFOs are doing work with CEOs. CNOs are involved. So I think those siloed need to be broken down. Those barriers need to be broken down. All the executives need to really collaborate. You know, CEOs, CNOs, CFOs, CMOs, it doesn't matter what your role is. If you have a seat at the table at the executive level, you should be thinking strategy. You should be thinking patient safety, patient care, patient quality. And like I always say, I mean, those come first and then finances always follow. And that goes across all health care organizations, whether you're on the payer side, whether you're on the provider side. Really, let's take a look at what we can do to best suit our organization. I think one of the things I love to train my teams, the people that report up to me, the people I work with is think of health care or think of your area as your own business or as your own kind of bank account, how you would be a good financial steward, how you would manage that, and everybody needs to think of that. But here at the executive level, it's always been patient care, patient safety, and what we can do to collaborate and work together. Absolutely. Well, Shyam, I wanna thank you for your time today. But before I let you go, is there anything else that listeners should know? No. I'm very excited to be here. I think this has been a great, great conference. It's been good to collaborate with people across across the country. One thing I would like to leave it at, I think we're, again, headed into kinda uncharted territory with so many new pairs in the market. I think providers as hospital systems, we need to really, you know, I guess, stop playing the cat and mouse game as someone who's been both on the payer side and now on the hospital side. Let's look at collaborations. Let's look at better communication across those providers and across the payers, and I feel like that's going to really open up a lot of doors and really provide the care we need to our communities. Absolutely. Well, that's a great note to end on. And so, Sean, I wanna thank you once again for your time today and for sharing your insights on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.