Pleasing the public servant
It’s the wise company that endeavors to please the public, at all costs. But bending over backwards to please a public servant? Who does that?
Joseph Prehodick, area manager at the Kent office of Ohio Edison.
After hearing an elected official complain about his high household energy costs, Prehodick researched the politician’s past billing over a two-year period.
“I saw that they could be doing better on a different rate, so I ran some scenarios, came up with a dollar savings and got permission to change the billing rate,” he says.
The following month, the family saved more than $100.
“He turned out to be the happiest customer in the world,” says Prehodick.
Of course, Prehodick secretly hopes that what goes around, comes around …
CFO woes
What’s a CFO’s greatest challenge? That depends on the industry, says Jim Wheeler.
As CFO of Cuyahoga Falls General Hospital, Wheeler’s beef is with the government and insurance companies.
“My challenge is to remain financially viable, and that’s difficult for a hospital when you consider everything we’ve been reading about the Balanced Budget Act, reductions in payments from the federal government and commercial carriers like Aetna and Prudential,” he says.
Wheeler says the shrinkage in payments to hospitals forces CFOs like himself to make do with less.
“That puts tremendous pressure on us as an institution in trying to maintain and improve quality.”
Despite that, Cuyahoga Falls General is operating in the black.
“It’s not significant — it’s several hundred thousand dollars,” he says. “But when you contrast that with the millions of dollars in losses at the major Akron hospitals over the past two years — are we pleased with what we’re doing? Yes. Do we have to try harder? You bet.”
Wheeler says Cuyahoga Falls General is the only hospital in Summit County that has dodged staff reduction during the past decade. He says that’s because he keeps a close eye on costs and scrutinizes ways to be more efficient.
“And that’s a real challenge.”
