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For healthcare finance leaders wrestling with margin compression despite clean RCM dashboards. I spend a lot of time with hospital CFOs and health system finance leaders who are doing everything "right." Revenue cycle management dashboards look clean. Denials are under control. Days in AR are reasonable. Vendors are hitting their KPIs. And yet, hospital margin compression persists. The instinct is always the same: look harder at Revenue Cycle. Push vendors. Tighten follow-up.

Someone asked me a follow-up question last week that I should have seen coming from a mile away. I didn’t. I had spent time on a recommendation, felt good about it, presented it, and within thirty seconds the obvious next question landed. The one that revealed I had thought through about sixty percent of what I needed to think through. You know the feeling. A little heat in your face. A quick mental scramble. The realization that you are about to say “let me get back to you o

Here's what Thanksgiving looks like in a hospital: Someone's grandfather who waited too long to come in. A parent who finally brought their kid after days of worry. The worker who couldn't afford to miss a shift until they had no choice. They all show up. And you're there. Every time. With the care they need. While America carves turkey and argues about football, your ED is running at 140% capacity. Your hospitalists are managing admits that should've happened three days ago.

Busier Than Ever, Yet Margins Stay Thin Across the country, independent hospitals are carrying more than their share of the weight. Whether you lead a community hospital in Arizona, a safety-net facility in the Midwest, or a regional medical center in New England, the feeling is the same. Your emergency department is busier than it has ever been. Your outpatient clinics continue to absorb everything that upstream clinics can no longer handle. Your teams are working hard, solv

One day a woman was making dinner when her husband asked, “Why do you cut the roast in half and bake it in two pans?” She answered, “I don’t know. My mom always did it that way.” That led to her mom, who said the same thing. Finally she asked her grandmother, who replied, “Sweetheart, I only had pans that small.” Three generations followed a system with no reason behind it. Nobody stopped to ask “why.” Outpatient healthcare is full of moments just like this. Not because peopl

If We’re Working This Hard, Why Aren’t We Winning? Let's be real. Every day in outpatient healthcare is a hustle. You clock in, charts pile up, and the patients keep cycling through. Decisions stack up minute by minute. You and your team are working hard, really hard. But here’s the painful part: Hard work doesn’t automatically equal progress. You look around and ask yourself, "If we're moving this fast, and everyone is giving 110%, why are we still fighting the same battles?

After I published the Founder-Led piece, I kept thinking about what felt unfinished. I explained how I work, but not why this work keeps pulling me in. Something was missing, and I realized it was the part I never really put words to. The part that shows up in the quiet corners of outpatient care where the pace is fast and the details matter. Cigal has been around since 2010, shaped by years of hands-on experience before that. We are not a new company. We are simply stepping

Cigal Concepts was built on a simple belief: results happen when expertise stays close to the work. As a founder-led consulting firm, we bring decades of hands-on healthcare experience straight to your team. There are no layers, no handoffs, and no wasted motion. Just focus, follow-through, and real progress you can see. Our work begins with listening. We take time to understand how your organization truly runs day to day — from the patient encounter to the financial close. B

Credentialing Without the Chaos Ask any administrator their least favorite word, and you’ll probably hear “credentialing.” It doesn’t...

The Revenue Reality Check Healthcare groups often work harder, yet take home less. Why? Silent leaks in the revenue cycle. At Cigal...