Robert Barber, DHA, FHFMA: the reasons I'm hooked on HFMA

Healthcare Financial Management, July, 2005

HFMA serves many purposes--and its benefits extend not only to individuals, but to communities, and ultimately to the U.S. healthcare system overall. For the healthcare community at large, HFMA provides the knowledge, resources, and connections that help us meet the nation's healthcare needs. And for an individual, it can provide the inspiration and impetus to build a rich and rewarding career.

I have been a member of HFMA's North Carolina Chapter for more than 20 years. In that time, I have had the pleasure of knowing some of the finest, most professional financial people in the world. They have been people who are dedicated to the rote of the finance professional in ensuring the continuing availability of healthcare services to the patients we serve. That's right--they are very clear that the reason we are there is to support the process of patient care.

They have been a group that works hard at their profession and on behalf of HFMA--and fortunately, they also know how to have fun. Developing friendships through cooperative effort and recreation has been one of the most rewarding aspects of HFMA membership.

The Association has also stimulated me and helped me grow intellectually. Coming to health care from a very different industry, I had to learn healthcare finance fast. HFMA was the vehicle that helped me do that. I attended the seminar "Healthcare Finance for Managers New to Healthcare" in Chicago in 1985. I found it fascinating. I began attending the North Carolina Chapter's conferences regularly and an Annual National Institute every once in a while.

By 1989, I had qualified for the HFMA Fellowship examination. I took it, and to my great pleasure, I passed. To me, this was affirmation of the growth of my professional knowledge in my new career. I then decided to take the Certified Manager of Patient Accounts examination in 1991, and I won the Sandleback Award as the national high scorer. I was now hooked.

When the Certified Managed Care Professional exam was developed, I took it and passed in 1995. I also took the newest exam in Financial Management of Physician Practices and passed it at the ANI in Nashville in 2004.

The intellectual stimulation continued through HFMA, as I was given the opportunity to make some conference and educational session presentations. I found that I liked teaching and saw it as an opportunity to pass on the knowledge that others in the profession had shared with me. In 1994, through HFMA contacts, I was recommended to develop and teach a new course in healthcare financial management for the new MBA/MHA program at Pfeiffer University. I have taught that course as an adjunct professor about 20 semesters since then to nearly 200 students. This experience stimulated my interest in higher education and prompted me to complete an executive doctoral program in health administration at Medical University of South Carolina--the nation's first DHA program--earning the degree doctor of health administration in 1999.

Since then I have been very active in presentations at the local, regional, and national level and have had a number of articles published in hfm and the North Carolina Chapter's Tarheel News. In fact, my dissertation topic was an expansion of a thought process first published in hfm in 1997. In 2004, I co-developed and co-taught a doctoral-level course in healthcare financial management for the nation's second DHA program at Central Michigan University.

Naturally, all of this activity was in conjunction with--but outside--my primary employment over the years at Moses Cone Health System, Mercy Health Services, and currently at Carolinas HealthCare System, where I am the director of payer contract compliance. In a very real sense, I am who I am today because of the opportunities and stimulation that I have enjoyed through HFMA. I highly recommend it!

Robert Barber, DHA, FHFMA

Director of Payer Contract Compliance

Carolinas HealthCare System

Charlotte, N.C.