Health Care Leader: Mark Leonard

Mastering the Nuances of Hospital Finance

There’s business finance. And then there’s healthcare finance. You can master the fundamentals of conventional business finance. Still, you’d be a long way from understanding the twists and turns of a hospital’s budgeting processes, revenue streams, and billing practices.

Walsh College alumnus Mark Leonard has learned healthcare finance the only way you can — through a long and varied career in the healthcare industry. Leonard currently serves as the chief operating officer of Beaumont Hospital, Troy, Michigan.

And it’s a career that never would have reached such heights without the master’s degree he earned at Walsh. “Having classes with people who are out in the working world conveyed to me that to be successful in finance, you really need to know the operations of the business as well,” Leonard says. “When I started my master’s program at Walsh I was a financial analyst, but I tried to learn all aspects of the business; financial, clinical, and operational.”

The finance degree wasn’t enough for Leonard. He wanted to understand what was happening in the clinical setting. And the master’s courses taught by real-world professionals at Walsh helped him appreciate why that was important. “I try to get out, round in the hospital, and hear directly from employees,” Leonard explains. “I also have a very close relationship with our administrative team, physicians, managers, and directors of all the different departments. If they have an issue, it is important they feel they can come to me. A lot of things bubble up to me, and it’s important to get involved to help.”

Leonard started his career with Beaumont in 1996, beginning as a financial analyst and moving into the roles of business support supervisor and director of reimbursement and cost accounting. Leonard left Beaumont in 2003 when he was asked to serve as chief financial officer of his family’s business.

“I was able to get them up to speed on computer systems and to be much more automated — with better controls in place,” Leonard says. “It was a really good experience, but ultimately I missed the hospital environment.” After nearly two years, Beaumont approached him about returning, and he seized the opportunity. Since then, Leonard has continued his ascent up the ladder — first to controller, then as vice president of finance, vice president of finance and operations, and finally, COO for the Troy hospital and related ambulatory buildings.

While he has responsibility for everything from environmental and food services to rehab services, from security to surgery, Leonard’s knowledge of finance is essential to all of it. And that’s especially true in health care, where finance is much different than in any other field.

“There are so many aspects to healthcare finance,” Leonard says. “Specifically, the complicated piece that does not make sense to patients is the billing component. Over the years, I would handle a lot of patient inquiries or complaints that would escalate to me and try to explain how healthcare finance works. After an hour or so, it might make a little sense, but it’s extremely difficult to understand and to explain to people.”

Over the years, he has learned how to do it well. And for Leonard, so much of his success with Beaumont still comes back to his decision to seek his master’s degree in finance from Walsh.

“It’s a local college with a great reputation,” Leonard declares. “The sense of community was important to me. But one of the biggest things was having people teaching you who have real-life experience. They aren’t just theorizing or going over what’s in a textbook. And those real-world examples made the classes much more interesting, too.” Because you can’t run a hospital by theorizing. When you’re working in a hospital, it’s as real as it gets. And thanks in part to his Walsh education, Leonard is more than up to the task.