Former HFMA director Carl Hitchner dies - HFMA News - Healthcare Financial Management Association - Brief Article

Healthcare Financial Management, Oct, 2001

Carl H. Hitchner, JD, FHFMA, died on August 5, 2001, after a battle with cancer. Hitchner served on HFMA's Board of Directors from 1988 until 1990. He was a partner in the San Francisco office of Foley & Lardner.

Hitchner also was a member of the HFMA National Matrix in 1986-87. A longtime member of HFMA's Northern California Chapter, Hitchner served as the chapter's president in 1985-86. In 1996, HFMA awarded him the Frederick C. Morgan Individual Achievement Award, the Association's highest honor for individual achievement, in recognition of his career-long contributions to healthcare financial management and HFMA. He earned the FHFMA in 1997.

"I knew Carl personally," said HFMA Chairman Ronald R. Long, FHFMA, CPA. "He had a huge heart. Even as successful as he was, he always was willing to sit down and discuss the industry with someone who was young and coming up through the ranks of health care. He was well respected not only in his market in California, but around the country."

Hitchner's professional experience included four years with the certified public accounting firm of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co. in New York and San Francisco, and two years as director of finance of the Stanford University Computer Center, Stanford, California. From 1976 to 1982, he was managing attorney for medical affairs at Stanford University Medical Center. In 1982, Hitchner founded the San Francisco office of Weissburg & Aronson, which later merged with Foley & Lardner, an international law practice specializing in health law.

At Foley & Lardner, Hitchner was general counsel to a 70-hospital integrated delivery system (IDS) and primary or special counsel to numerous other healthcare clients. With a broad background in corporate and business law, Hitchner specialized in mergers and affiliations of hospitals and development of hospital systems, physician-hospital organizations, and IDSs.

Hitchner earned a BS in accounting from Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and a JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School, Notre Dame, Indiana. He was a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, the American Health Lawyers Association, the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys, and the Catholic Health Association. He served on the board of trustees of Catholic Health Corporation, Omaha, Nebraska, from 1989 to 1995, and was a member of the board of directors of Susquehanna University at the time of his death.

In his private life, Hitchner was an ardent supporter of civil rights and the protection of animals. He formed a foundation to support these causes as well as cancer research. Contributions to that foundation may be sent to:

The Carl H. Hitchner Foundation

P.O. Box 792

Palm Springs, CA 92262