“We have invested around USD 200,000 in the companies we met through Marcus Evans,” said Thomas Gibney, Chief Financial Officer, St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital / Newburgh, a speaker and delegate at three Marcus Evans Healthcare CFO, Financial Strategy & Revenue Cycle Summits. “They were vendors we had not worked with before. That is one of the advantages of attending the event. It gives you access to vendors that you might not have otherwise been aware of,” he adds.
They exposed us to a national audience, a national group of CFOs. We were able to share ideas with individuals from across the country, which was valuable. The area our hospital is in has a very challenging payer mix, around 80 percent government pay, so we face reimbursement issues and it is a real struggle to move ahead financially. Sometimes we get caught up in what we need to do to survive in this environment and we lose sight of what hospitals with an advantageous payer mix do. It is important for us to understand those perspectives as well. Marcus Evans brings these groups together.
Secondly, the way Marcus Evans runs the vendor meetings is very effective, and advantageous for vendors and delegates. Marcus Evans does a great job in terms of due diligence, so people are not wasting their time and just checking off a box. The format has worked for me, and it has resulted in us taking advantage of a few vendors.
No. I would say that in every case, it was a new vendor that I had not dealt with in my career.
No. It is just human nature. Cold calling has only worked with me once in the last 15 – 20 years. I do not have time to take those calls so I ignore them. But at the Summit, we end up asking many questions and finding out a lot more about each vendor than we otherwise would. The vendors seem to bring the right people in, and are very open to discussions and trying to determine what our needs are.
I have a very high bar that a vendor has to get over. A vendor really has to prove to me that there will be a true return on our investment and worth our effort.
Find out more about the upcoming Healthcare CFO, Financial Strategy & Revenue Cycle Summit