Financial Accounting in Health Care Administration

Topic: Administration
Words: 317 Pages: 1

The profession of a Health Care Administrator that I am pursuing is a responsible, highly challenging, but essential profession in the medical field. Health care administration as a whole entails managing a health care facility overseeing all its departments’ performance. I hope to work at a hospital or other health care institution in an administrative position to guide teams of professionals toward quality patient care. Furthermore, since this role requires interdisciplinary skills and knowledge, one is expected to be an influential leader, a proficient specialist, and a competent manager. One of the essential elements in this profession is financial accounting expertise, which is necessary to ensure adequate distribution, controlling, and reporting on finances.

The types of financial transactions in health care administration might include various exchanges of assets and data enabling the proper functioning of a hospital. Firstly, health care claim transactions might be generated to request a payment for a health plan (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS], 2021). Secondly, a health plan eligibility benefit inquiry and response is a transaction that is necessary to obtain information on eligibility and coverage under a health plan (CMS, 2021).

Thirdly, a payment order/remittance advice transaction would be required to identify a fund transfer to a hospital (CMS, 2021). These transactions directly influence the potential of a health care facility to perform according to the standards and to serve its patients with the best quality care. Adequacy and timeliness of the transactions are the decisive factors in the businesses’ overall feasibility.

Hospitals and other health care institutions a reliant on their capital. This principle guides their ability to spend financial assets in a manner that contributes to the sustainability and feasibility of their businesses and the improvement of patient care. Therefore, the ability of health care administration to apply accounting knowledge to financial management allows for controlling and competitively distributing money for continuous development and quality patient-centered functioning.

Reference

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2021). Health care transactions basics. Web.