Healthcare finance is personal for HFMA's new chairman, David Canfield: hard work, education, people, people, and more people are the passions of HFMA's 2003-04 chairman - Special Section - a profile of Canfield & Associates president David Canfield - Biography

Healthcare Financial Management, June, 2003

Ask Dave Canfield about healthcare finance. Ask Dave Canfield about careers. Ask Dave about HFMA. And the response inevitably boils down to one word: people.

David Canfield, FHFMA, president of Canfield & Associates, the accounts receivable services division of PENS, Inc., assumes the chairmanship of HFMA this month, and he brings with him a direct and compelling theme: HEMA: It's Personal. But Canfield's career and HFMA activities display more than just a love of people; they show boundless energy, intense commitment, and a willingness to seize--or create--opportunities.

Starting at the Bottom

Canfield's entry into health care--like all of his career moves--came through a friend. However, it was not exactly the entry-level position of his dreams. "Our neighbor was an administrative assistant at a new hospital in town," Canfield says. "I had just graduated from high school, and my neighbor suggested I apply for a job there."

So far, so good, but the only position available was as a janitor. "So I became a full-time janitor at the hospital, working the evening shift while going to college full-time during the day. Soon I became the evening supervisor for the housekeeping department and then assistant head housekeeper."

Housekeeping wasn't quite the career path that Canfield was hoping for, but he made the best of it. "I was having a good time," he says. "I was captain of the softball team, and one of my teammates was the controller. They. didn't have CFOs back then. The controller said he'd heard I was taking business courses and asked whether I could post accounts. I said, 'No problem.'"

This Silly Machine

Canfield saw an opportunity to get out of house keeping, so between being a full-time student and full-time janitor, he found time whenever he could to, as he puts it, "learn how to run this silly machine"--an NCR keypunch.

At 18, Canfield became the youngest NCR operator in the state of California. But after six months, he was ready for new challenges. "So they moved me over into collections, working evenings in the business office." Canfield became the supervisor and then the collection manager, which was, he says, "pretty cool" for a 20-year-old.

Then came the mandate to retire Canfield's beloved keypunch machine and to automate. That proved to be a pivotal moment in Canfield's career.

An Information System Whiz-Kid

"Computers were just coming into hospitals," Canfield recalls. "My hospital asked me to head up the conversion, which meant I had to go Out and learn everything possible about how to convert the hospital to the new system." Canfield implemented the system for all of the hospital's general and patient accounting.

Word traveled fast in Southern California about the 21-year-old kid who was an expert on this new patient accounting system. "I was getting calls; I was getting consulting engagements; it was crazy." Ultimately, Canfield was offered a job at a new hospital overseeing the entire revenue cycle, from admitting to collections. As Canfield tells it, "For a kid of 21 years, that's not such a bad deal." But the administrator at Canfield's first hospital offered him a similar position, and offered to pay for his graduate education as well. Canfield stayed...for 11 years.

Enter HFMA

At age 21, Canfield was, according to his own words, "a cocky kid. I thought I was pretty good at what I was doing, and I didn't need anybody else."

Then Canfield met Doc Barto. Barto was consulting for Canfield's hospital and suggested Canfield attend an HFMA chapter education event. "I didn't have the time. But Doc told me to make the time--basically, he dragged me to the meeting." And Canfield was impressed. "About 3oo people were there. The quality of the presentations was excellent. And the people were so friendly and outgoing. From then on," Canfield says, "I was hooked on HFMA."

We Don't Have Room for You

During those years, Canfield earned two bachelor's degrees--one in business administration and one in public health--and started work on a master's in health services administration.

While he was pursuing his master's degree, Canfield told his hospital administrator that he, too, wanted to be an administrator one day, or at least an associate.

The response? "I don't want you to leave, but we don't have room for you here." The response wasn't a slight against Canfield, just a realistic assessment. The hospital had no foreseeable openings in senior management. Also, the administrator was thinking of what was best for Canfield. "He gave me excellent advice," says Canfield. "He reminded me I had been at the hospital a long time and suggested that I get out and see how other hospitals operated--expand my horizons."

Patient Financial Services for the Stars

No one who knows Canfield would be surprised that an HFMA member led him to his next job--as business office manager at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs, California.

Eisenhower brought with it not just added responsibility and knowledge, but something that was "pretty neat" for a young man: a star-studded clientele. "It was nothing to run into Frank Sinatra or Bob Hope in the hospital," Canfield says.