1. Marc Paruta , Senior Financial Analyst Healthcare and Hospital
: Automation and process improvement skills
I can offer a lot more than the regular financial analyst. I well skilled in process improvement and
automation. 10 years in Health Care at Kaiser Permanente allowed me to really shine and grow
professionally. As part of my professional development plan I volunteered to take over work that was not
being done well. My supervisor was unsatisfied by the KP AP performance. They were a clerical group and
had an unsatisfactory record of on time payment. We could not accept this since we had large dollar
consulting payments that had to be paid monthly to Deloitte and PWC. On time payment was a SOX
requirement. I told my supervisor I thought I could do I better job if she let me take over AP. Once I took over
AP, she never had to worry that a SOX required payment is made on time. I had to be quite assertive in the
workplace to make this all happen. If Deloitte or PWC was late with their invoice I called they directly and
told them the invoice was due that day by 5 PM which would allow us to meet our SOX obligation of on time
payment. Of course the vendor never missed this opportunity to get paid and I had the invoice by 5 PM
without fail. I would not passively send an invoice to a managing director asking for signature approval. I
marched into their office, and saying would you kindly approve the Deloille invoice so I can assure on time
payment. They were delighted to approve my invoice responding, “thank you for taking that off my plate, it's
one less thing I have to worry about.”
Hospital and Health PIan month end close: I also had significant general account responsibilities. I wrote all
the journal entries for 13 cost centers of our Revenue Cycle department and closed the month on time,
every month for 10 years. Revenue Cycle was a large operating budget, $100M operating expenses, 13 cost
centers and 300 FTE. I also was responsible for intra-company recharges between health plan and hospital.
We had many expenses that that to be paid at a headquarters level, then examined and sorted by the
specific GL string of the California hospital that incurred the expense. I wrote all the journal entries to post
these expenses to KP headquarters at the same time writing the journal entries to credit back headquarters,
with an offsetting debit to California hospitals. This obvious had to be done in the same accounting month to
avoid artificial variances. I did financial reporting to the California hospital with back up documentation and
line item detail of every dollar recharged to their operating budget. This allow the hospital to better manage
their expenses, and do the monthly reforecast in Cognos that was required by all KP departments.
Hospital Process Improvement / Automation : Hospital coder expenses at Kaiser were processed mostly by
Kaiser FTE but some had to be done by contract coders like Maxim on site at the California Hospitals. The
problem with the process in place was that the coder vendor like Maxim would send their invoices directly to
general accounting without line item detail. General accounting would pay all invoices directly from a
headquarters account and then write the journal entries to debit the California Hospitals individually by GL
code. The problem all the hospital received was a lump sum charge to their contractor expenses line with no
detail. This created unfavorable variances they could neither manager nor explain. I told my supervisor I
could do a better job if she gave me the chance. With enthusiastic support from my supervisor, I spoke to
general account in inquire why they approved invoices without back up documentation. Their response was
“we have always done it this way.”. Enough said. My supervisor diplomatically told the general accounting
manager that we were taking over this work. Honestly they were glad to be rid of it. I immediately
implemented an automated process improvement. I brokers a deal with Maxim and the other contract
vendors, assuring them I could make on time payments if they provided line item detail with every invoice.
The line item detail was easy to read, “John Smith, Coder III. $36 per hour, worked 37.5 hour for week
ended June 15th , total, approved by Camille Ross, Kaiser Santa Rosa Hospital. The hospital managers
were delighted to have this information for the first time. This allowed them to manage their contract coder
work force, and check for vendor overcharges, and explain variances in this GL account when asked. I took
over all the journal entries necessary to make sure all charges were posted by month end. A simple
automation and process improvement that met with rave reviews from our hospitals.
Hospital Financial Reporting, automation via EXCEL: managers and leadership charged Travel and
entertainment expenses to a One Card at Kaiser. There expenses were paid directly by KP the vendor using
company funds. The problem was “One card” debited the operating budget in lump sums with no line item
detail.

2. Hospital & Health plan Process Improvement : Standard AP procedure was to cut vendor checks, mail them
out and keep a hard paper copy of the corresponding vendor invoice. Vendor invoices were stored in
cardboard boxes then archived. AP spent much of their time responding to vendor queries about unpaid
invoices. They were able to query for a vendor payment using our PeopleSoft AP system but the
corresponding vendor invoice was not it Peoplesoft – it existed only in paper copy in the archive room. AP
spend a lot of time digging through cardboard box in archives hoping to find that vendor invoice. A filing
mistake meant the invoice was lost for good. I inquired why they used this somewhat manual method. They
replied it had always been done that way. I saw an opportunity for process improvement for the hospitals
that was frustrated they did not have a quick answer when vendor called the hospital about unpaid invoice.
For the hospital especially, the dollar amount were large. My automation process improvement was quick
and effective. We invested in a high volume state of the art printer scanner. AP procedure was changed so
that every check cut was scanned with a copy of the vendor invoice behind it. It was a simple 2 page .pdf
but it had a copy of the KP check and the vendor invoice. The .pdfs were quick to created and stored on a
shared drive by the date of check issuance. This enabled very rapid responds to vendor payment queries.
All it too was to pull up the 2 page .pdf, e-mail it to the vendor as proof when payment was made. The
hospitals were delighted to have a rapid fire response to vendor queries.
Hospital Ad Hoc Reporting : The California hospitals did not have a large staff of financial analysts and as
such they often called on us to do ad hoc financial analysis. After 10 years at KP, I knew all the internal
systems and could quickly respond to hospital ad hoc financial analysis requests. The hospitals priority was
patient care. I enjoyed being of service to the hospital by responding to their requests for financial analysts.
Professionally, it was a great opportunity for me to learn about hospital operations.