Industry
Fractional CFO for Healthcare Practices
A fractional CFO for healthcare practices manages the gap that defines the whole business: the difference between what you bill, what you're contracted to be paid, and what actually lands in the bank weeks later after denials and adjustments.
Healthcare finance is unlike almost any other industry because you rarely collect what you charge, and you never collect it quickly. Every claim runs through a revenue cycle where gross charges are written down to contracted rates, some portion is denied, some is appealed, and patient responsibility is collected separately and slowly. The single most important operating number is days in accounts receivable: how long, on average, it takes to turn a service into cash. A practice can be fully booked and clinically excellent while AR days quietly climb and collections lag production, and most physician-owners have no visibility into where in the cycle the money is stuck.
The second driver is payer mix and reimbursement. The same procedure pays materially differently across commercial insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid, so a shift in the mix of patients or a single contract renegotiation can move the bottom line more than any expense you control. Net collection rate, denial rate by payer and reason, and contracted-rate analysis are the levers, and they require reading claims data rather than the P&L alone. A fractional CFO for healthcare builds the reporting that ties payer mix and revenue-cycle performance to cash, so you can see which contracts and which workflows are worth fixing.
Third is the economics inside the practice: productivity and cost per provider. Whether measured in wRVUs, visits, or collections per provider, per-provider productivity against compensation is what determines whether adding a physician or an ancillary line makes money or dilutes the partners. Layer on the real and rising cost of regulatory and compliance overhead, and margins are thinner and more sensitive than most owners assume. An outsourced CFO function gives a multi-provider practice the financial discipline of a much larger organization without the full-time overhead. If you'd like to see whether it fits, the fastest path is a short conversation via our contact page.
What a CFO watches in Healthcare Practices
Revenue cycle & AR days
Days in accounts receivable and net collection rate tracked so you know exactly where cash is stuck in the cycle.
Denial management
Denial rate by payer and reason surfaced monthly so recurring, fixable rejections stop leaking revenue.
Payer mix & reimbursement
The revenue impact of your payer mix and contracted rates modeled so renegotiations target the contracts that matter.
Per-provider productivity
Production and collections per provider against compensation, so hiring and comp decisions are grounded in economics.
Ancillary & service-line margin
True contribution of imaging, labs, and other lines so you invest where the margin is and exit where it isn't.
Compliance cost visibility
Regulatory and compliance overhead tracked as a real line so margin decisions account for the full cost of care.
What lands each month
- Revenue-cycle dashboard — A monthly view of AR days, net collection rate, and denial trends by payer so problems are caught early, not at year end.
- Payer & service-line P&L — Profitability cut by payer and service line so contract and investment decisions rest on facts, not intuition.
- Provider productivity reporting — Per-provider production, collections, and comp ratios that support fair, defensible compensation and hiring decisions.
- Cash forecast & budget — A forward cash forecast and annual budget built on realistic collections, so distributions and investments are safe.
Fractional CFO for Healthcare Practices — FAQ
How much does a fractional CFO for healthcare practices cost?
It depends on the number of providers, locations, and how much revenue-cycle cleanup is involved. We publish monthly ranges on our [pricing](/pricing) page so you can weigh it against the collections it's meant to recover.
Isn't this what our billing company already handles?
A billing company works claims; a CFO tells you whether the billing company is doing it well. We measure AR days, denial rates, and net collection rate independently, so you can see performance rather than take it on faith.
Can you tell us whether adding a provider will actually pay off?
Yes. We model production, collections, and payer mix per provider against compensation and overhead, so you know whether a new hire or service line adds margin or dilutes what the partners take home.
We're busy but distributions keep shrinking. Where's the money going?
Usually it's rising AR days, denials that never get reworked, or a payer-mix shift eroding effective reimbursement. The revenue-cycle dashboard shows exactly where production is failing to convert to cash.
Related services
Fractional CFO
Senior CFO judgment on a monthly retainer — the same operator in your numbers every month, not whoever is free on the bench this week.
Outsourced CFO
Stand up a complete CFO function without building one — close support, reporting, forecasting, and lender management, owned by a senior operator.
Book a working session.
A 20-minute call, a clear read on your numbers, and a straight answer on whether a fractional CFO is the right call right now.