Best Hospital Finance Departments program names 36 finalists

Thirty-six hospital finance teams are in the running to be named a top department in Healthcare Finance News' inaugural "Where to Work: BEST Hospital Finance Departments" program.

Now the big question is: Who's going to be named one of 2013's top hospital finance departments? Of the 60 nominated hospitals, 36 have qualified for one of the top 15 spots. To qualify, at least half of a finance department's employees had to complete the program's 75-question online survey.

The program's nomination period began February 13 and ended March 29.

The employee survey period ran from April 2 to May 20. Healthcare Finance News' research partner, Critical Insights, a market-research company based in Portland, Maine, is now analyzing the results, and will reveal the winners internally on June 14. The top hospitals will be profiled in a September 2013 special section of Healthcare Finance News in print and online. The program includes three categories: top 5 large (25 or more finance employees); top 5 medium (11-24 employees); and top 5 small (10 or fewer employees).

The program's goal is to determine what characteristics distinguish the best hospital finance departments from all the rest. To do that, employees grade their departments across seven categories: day-to-day work, finance team, management, hospital leadership, workplace culture, training and development and compensation.

Here are the finalists for the 2013 "Where to Work: BEST Hospital Finance Departments" program:

Swedish American Hospital – Illinois

Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca – New York 

Samaritan Hospital – Washington 

The Menninger Clinic – Texas 

Temple University Hospital – Pennsylvania 

ValleyCare Medical Center – California 

Southwest Medical Center – Kansas 

South Nassau Communities Hospital – New York 

Altru Hospital – North Dakota 

Owensboro Medical Health System – Kentucky

Providence Hospital Northeast – South Carolina 

Monadnock Community Hospital – New Hampshire 

Baptist St. Anthony Health System – Baptist Campus – Texas 

Schneck Medical Center – Indiana 

Genesys Regional Medical Center at Health Park – Michigan 

Harrison Community Hospital – Ohio 

Baton Rouge General Medical Center – Louisiana 

McLeod Regional Medical Center – South Carolina

Memorial Regional Hospital – Florida 

Jersey City Medical Center – New Jersey

Simi Valley Hospital & Health Care Service – California 

The Valley Hospital – New Jersey

NorthBay Medical Center – California 

Blessing Hospital – Illinois

Fairfield Medical Center – Ohio

St. Agnes Hospital & Agnesian HealthCare – Wisconsin 

Wichita County Hospital – Kansas 

Armstrong County Memorial Hospital – Pennsylvania 

Atlantic Health System – New Jersey 

St. Francis Hospital – SFDE – Delaware

North Okaloosa Medical Center – Florida 

Oneida County Hospital – Idaho 

Union Hospital – Indiana 

Phelps County Regional Medical Center – Missouri 

South Jersey Regional Medical Center – New Jersey 

Pullman Regional Hospital – Washington