There's a new Chief (Financial Officer) in Town

Memorial Hospital of Carbon County recently hired Margaret Fontana as their new Chief Financial Officer. She started her position as CFO the first week of March.

Fontana is the former CFO of Prairie Health in Langdon, North Dakota with over 15 years of financial management experience both in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. She also earned her Masters in Business Administration from Louisiana State University-Shreveport along with different healthcare management certifications.

Fontana said due to a change of management at Prairie Health, she was out of work and her friend told her about the CFO opening at MHCC. She said it turned out to be a great decision to apply for this job.

“Where I used to work, they had a change of management and the new CEO had his own CFO so I lost my position,” Fontana said. “I was unemployed, so I went home and spent Christmas with my family. I was looking for other positions and a friend recommended I apply for the CFO position at MHCC and I did.”

Fontana said when she was interviewed, MHCC administrators were impressed with her knowledge in her field of health management. She said her experience, certifications and degrees helped her get the CFO position.

“I have experience working with General Ledger Software Multiview where I converted that in North Dakota,” Fontana said. “I have a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) certificate both in the State of North Carolina and North Dakota and I will get my CPA in Wyoming. It was mainly because of my work experience that was the reason why I got hired.”

Fontana said her main objective is creating better customer service. Her strategy is all about delivering high expectations which will satisfy both patients and insurance companies and to provide quality service for the entire community. She said people will go elsewhere for services if these goals do not meet the customers’ high demands.

“What I want to do is to work on our revenue cycle and billing piece,” Fontana said. ”We want to be above board on our expectations for insurance and payments so that there will be no surprises for anybody who comes for services here. It is our goal to make MHCC the hospital of choice for our community. We can not be all things to all people but we can certainly do what is needed for our people who live in Carbon County.”

Keisha Edwards, Marketing Coordinator for MHCC, said she is excited about having Fontana as part of the staff. She said her experience will make all the difference in making MHCC successful and is looking forward to working alongside her.

“We are excited to have Margaret as part of our team and she brings a lot of knowledge to our organization,” Edwards said. “She has amazing experience with a good personality and is easy to get along with”.

Edwards said she will be working with Fontana on the marketing side which will help provide what clients need for medical financial services. She said this will be an important part which will help MHCC move forward in being successful in customer service.

“Being in Marketing we will be working closely together as far as what services we have to offer,” Edwards said. “We will be marketing the services that MHCC has and the capability in serving our clients.”

Edwards said she will be working on a program that will best fit all MHCC clients’ needs.

“There are some different things we are working on,” Edwards said. “We recently started a PFAC committee, which is the Patient Family Advisory Council. We are getting some good feedback from them on what we can prove to them and things that we are doing well that we continue to do. Just having Margaret involved in these conversations as well as being part of the process will help us in the improvement equation.”

The MHCC-PFAC works on feedback with patients and family members. They take the time to listen to the concerns of their clients so MHCC can better serve in the customer service department.

MHCC marketing department is working closely with PFAC to see what improvements can be made to meet their clients service satisfaction and needs. Edwards said her message to MHCC clients is that the marketing department is committed to meeting all their clients’ needs.

“Having a county hospital is important to the community,” Edwards said. “We are doing our best to make the improvements that we are hearing from the community. Our staff is fortunate to have people like Margaret on board so there will be great improvements that will be happening.”

Stephanie Hinkle, Marketing, Communications and Foundation Director at MHCC, said the healthcare industry can be challenging. She said her department is working closely with everyone, especially the fast pace the healthcare industry is heading.

“Working in healthcare and rural healthcare particularly is incredibly multifaceted and it’s a different animal,” Hinkle said. “It’s a fairly rapidly changing environment and we continue to re-evaluate different methods such as service lines or the billing. Those are things that we are continually looking at and doing strategic planning.”

Hinkle said you can never do things perfectly but what her team can do is make things easy and reasonable for their clients. She said she does not expect everyone on her team to do everything but to make a valiant effort to go above and beyond in customer service.

“We cannot do it all but we have a lot of services that other hospitals in comparison to us do not offer,” Hinkle said. “So I think helping the community understand that and the value of having those services at the local level (is important). I absolutely believe whether it is a car dealership, restaurant or healthcare, if you don’t utilize your services you have available they will likely disappear.”

Hinkle said what matters most is to work with what you have and to find ways on what can be done better. She said her team is reaching out to the community on making any improvements necessary.

“We all have an obligation to support what we do have available at the local level whenever possible,” Hinkle said. “It’s important for the community to know the efforts that are consistently being made to evaluate new service lines and to strive to enhance on what’s available and do better whether it be billing or customer service”.

Hinkle said Fontana’s experience will play an important role on how things will get done in customer service. She said it all about how teamwork is organized and putting the right pieces together in solving their customers’ concerns by building a great team.

“All the pieces are in the works right now and having someone like Margaret in her expertise available,” Hinkle said “Those are the extra edges that will get us to the next level. So we had a large focus in 2024 about staff realignment and bringing in different players into the mix so that MHCC can get that competitive edge to make those objectives.”

If you want to know more about the services that MHCC has to offer you can visit their website at https://www.imhcc.com/about-us/administration/