Financial Management in Health Care for Non-Financial Managers

Program Overview

Enhancing Financial Literacy for Health Care Professionals 

Despite having extensive expertise, high-level health care stakeholders have not always developed the financial literacy needed to manage organizations and create financially sound strategies for delivering health care. 

Health care has many unique aspects that make financial control as critical as it is challenging to manage. In the U.S., this includes recent shifts in health care policy towards payment structures that provide incentives for high-quality and efficient care, and shift of focus to a value-based care from traditional volume-based care. Similar complexities are impacting the financial part of health care management around the world. To help ease the impact, Financial Management in Health Care for Non-Financial Managers will increase health care leaders’ competence in the critical area of financial management and control.  

Participants in this online program, led by Harvard experts, will benefit from a combination of learning approaches, such as case studies and interactive classroom discussions.  

By the end of the program, you will have the understanding and skills to more effectively manage the planning- and control-related activities of your department or division. This includes the ability to interact more effectively with the finance personnel in your hospital and practice settings.  

Note: While much of the framing focuses on the U.S. system, the concepts are universally applicable. Key financial concepts covered in this course include: 

• Differential Costs 

• Full Cost Accounting 

• Management Control Structure 

You will learn methods for determining the full cost of delivering health care, examine fixed costs, variable costs, direct costs, indirect, as well as when differential costs should be used rather than full costs.