Roles of Chief Financial Officer, Interview Example

From a theoretical perspective, management of employees within an industrial social setting entails application of some theories and principles. These theories and principles provide guidelines for managers to execute their duties in an objective manner. Management has evolved through numerous stages since history of production to its present status. Currently, managers integrate modern management theories like the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in their positional responsibilities. Such modern management theory explicitly postulate how managers and other leaders should handle their management duties, which include planning, organizing, directing and controlling the various elements within a work place (Elaine, 2008). In order to acknowledge the practical application of these management functions within an actual work environment, it would be inherent to source first hand information from individual employees assuming relevant managerial positions. This will serve the purpose of validating the relationship that exists between the theoretical and practical functions of managers. Practical acquisition of functional information facilitates learning and solidifies the concepts contained in literature materials (Elaine, 2008).

In order to execute the learning experience, I focused on carrying out appropriate interviews in Cosmos, which is a health care institution. With respect to the administrative functions of managers, I sought to learn the roles of a Chief Financial Officer and a Utilization Review Coordinator within the nursing facility. Both these positions were solidly established within the institution. According to information from the hospital’s leadership structure, these positions of a financial officer and utilization coordinator have clear responsibilities and operate in a semi-autonomous manner in relation to the other departments within the organization. During the interview process, I followed all the essential steps including obtaining consent from the organization’s public relations office and the two interviewees. For objectivity and efficiency of the interviews, I collected information with the use of questionnaires containing relevant open and close ended questions (Elaine, 2008). Based on the interview entries, I documented the following information obtained in a first person version from the chief financial officer and the utilization review coordinator.

Chief Financial Officer

As the chief financial officer, how do you respond to the needs of involved stakeholders, which include Board of Directors, employees, and clients?

My duty to the Board of Directors entails supplementing the appropriate financial information in a professional and timely manner, for purposes of facilitating decision making within the board. In this case, my duties involve regulating, supervising and implementing application of accurate accounting principles in a manner consistent with the industry regulations and the needs of the directors (Elaine, 2008). The products of my coordinated efforts to the Board of Directors include annual budgets, financial plans, feasibility studies and investment projections, among other financial documents.

In the context of employees within the institution, my chief duty involves ensuring development of a conducive working environment among employees within the accounting and finance department. I am continuously involves in initiating and executing professional and social activities that serves to promote occupational integration and professional health of subordinate accountants. In achieving professional integration, appropriate activities may include creation of work teams and project groups.

My position also works towards responding to the needs of clients seeking health services within the institution. In this regard, my efforts aim at facilitating efficiency of accounting and financial services to patients and other clients seeking health care services (Wendelyn & Duke, 2012). I usually integrate relevant resources at my disposal in creating systems meant to achieve this purpose. Recently, I initiated and implemented computerization of all financial services in the institution. This step resulted in fast and effective service delivery to both in and out-patients.

Utilization Review Coordinator

What is Utilization review coordination in the context of nursing and health care institutions?

Utilization review is a discipline involved with ensuring that medical and nursing services within the within a health care institution are consistent with the guidelines and regulations deemed appropriate for provision of nursing services (Wendelyn & Duke, 2012). The review processes aim at managing activities in order to create a desirable level of service delivery to both inpatients and the outpatients.

What are your three key roles as the Utilization Review Coordinator in the institution?

As the position’s manager, my key duty involves performing the administrative function of ensuring compliance of services offered to the standards stipulated by concerned authorities like Federal and state administrative institutions. In this case, my duty is to implement mechanisms meant to incorporate the established guidelines in day-to-day undertakings within the workplace. Such duties may include effectively managing inpatient service delivery in order to minimize cases of patient negligence and errors in patient payments.

Since my position is accountable for ensuring compliance of practices within the institution, my responsibilities extends to conducting quality assurance exercises (Wendelyn & Duke, 2012). As the coordinator, I appraise all patient discharge paperwork to ensure compliance to regulations guiding discharge of inpatients from nursing facilities. In case of a situation involving an inpatient in need of assistance with discharge planning, I work closely with the Social Work department in ensuring proper documentation of discharge paperwork. In addition, my duty as a discharge coordinator is to ensure that patients are accorded appropriate home care discharge arrangements by the institution.

Finally, the third key responsibility of my position includes review of payment procedures and reporting those payments to the concerned stakeholders. As the manager, my duty is to oversee all the paperwork involved during payments of insurance claims to patients by insurance agencies (Joanne, Janice & Cindy, 2012). Subsequently, I will ensure collection, analysis and reporting of these financial proceedings, and share the documented findings with involved departments like financial offices and the utilization review committee.

Upon completion of the information collection process, I could objectively identify the managerial roles of the two positions within a nursing institution. Both the positions deals with explicitly defined functions, all aimed at serving the best interests of stakeholders involved. In this case, a Chief Financial Officer works towards addressing the needs of patients and other integral stakeholders of nursing services provision. Based on the responses, a Chief Financial Officer within a nursing facility ensures efficient service delivery to patients through appropriate technological mechanisms (Wendelyn & Duke, 2012). In addition, the manager assuming that position ensures smooth financial interactions between the patients and other financial bodies like insurance agencies. Provision of financial documents like budgets and investment plans to the board ensures smooth execution of nursing services in the health care industry. On the other hand, the interview information clearly outlines the role of Utilization Review Coordinator with respect to needs of patients and the nursing services. The coordinator ensures delivery of services in a professional and ethical manner. In the context of payment reviews, the coordinator ensures all financial needs of patients are addressed by insurance agencies. Quality assurance ensures that the subject institution gains a positive reputation with respect to the standard of services offered (Wendelyn & Duke, 2012). This helps in maintaining professional nursing services within the healthcare industry.

During the interview process, I could acquire qualitative information from the respondents through observation and interpersonal interactions. One of the leadership aspects I learned includes the ability to address the needs of stakeholders in a prioritized and orderly manner (Elaine, 2008). In both responses, the managers prioritized the need to address the matters of patients and the nursing profession before seeking to accommodate any other requirements (Wendelyn & Duke, 2012). Both the managers focused their energies in ensuring development of professionalism and accountability in administration of health care services. This includes the aspect of quality assurance contained in the duties of a Utilization Review Coordinator, and computerization of services by the Chief Financial Officer to promote efficiency in service delivery to patients. Apart from objective prioritization, I learned that the leaders possessed good communication and interpersonal skills. The Utilization Review Coordinator asserts the need of integration between his department and that of social works. In this case, effective integration of these efforts requires good communication skills (Elaine, 2008). Therefore, the responses and observation facilitated development of an insight regarding the essential qualities of leaders in a nursing institution.

Based on the interview responses, I could establish similarities between the theoretical concepts of management and the practical application of these theories in an authentic workplace. Theoretical information explicitly defines the roles of Utilization Review Coordinator as a chief party in quality assurance (Joanne, Janice & Cindy, 2012). From the interview, the responding utilization coordinator complies with this aspect of quality assurance by static his activities in ensuring appropriate service delivery to patients. On the other hand, literature emphasizes the role of a financial officer in ensuring a health relationship between insurance institutions and patients (Joanne, Janice & Cindy, 2012). Therefore, there is a positive relationship between information contained in literature materials and those applied in the real workplace. This serves to support the principles of leadership contained in management theories by contrasting them with their applicability.

Reference List

Elaine, L. M. (2008). Management and Leadership in Nursing and Health Care: An Experiential Approach. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

Joanne, V, Janice, L & Cindy, S. (2012). Integrating the Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing into the American Association of Nurses Strategic Plan. Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, 44 (3) 164-167

Wendelyn, M & Duke, R. N. (2012) Letters: Patient Satisfaction and Student Nurses: American Journal of Nursing, 112 (10) 12-13