Richard Stokes is the current Chief Financial Officer at Stephens County Hospital. Richard has previous experience as the CFO at Gila Regional Medical Center and Wilbarger General Hospital.
Richard has a proven track record of successfully turnaround financial situations at both hospitals. At GRMC, they formulated a financial plan that reversed a multimillion dollar loss to a $500,000 profit within the first twelve months. At Wilbarger General Hospital, they were hired to execute a complete turnaround for the clinical facility’s operations. Richard restored profitability and accelerated bottom-line performance by $5.5M+ within the first 12 months. Richard also reduced supply expenses by $1.1M over 12 months and boosted Medicare CMI (Case Mix Index) from .98 to 1.3, resulting in increased reimbursements.
In addition to their successes in financial management, Richard has also made major strides in quality of care. Richard improved the failing quality score assigned by The Leapfrog Group from an “F” to a “B” and positioned the hospital as 5th in the entire state to secure ISO 9001 certification during the 2015 quality management audit. Richard has also built a culture of accountability and focus on quality improvement, implementing daily rounding and monthly quality meetings for all staff. As a result, they have been able to reduce the readmission rate to 7% and cut the average length of stay by 1 day.
Richard is also experienced in provider and employee relations. Richard has successfully recruited numerous key positions on physician teams, including 2 Cardiologists, 1 General Surgeon, 2 Pediatricians, 1 Orthopedic Surgeon, 4 ED Physicians, 4 Hospitalists and 17 mid-level providers.
Finally, Richard has leveraged Lean methodology to improve business processes throughout both organizations. At Wilbarger General Hospital, they achieved 92% operating room all-cases start time compliance and realized a 79% reduction in initial claim denials and an 84% reduction in daily claim failure rate. Richard also decreased observation denials 96%, from $38K per week to $1.6K per week, and raised registration accuracy from 60% to 98%.
Richard Stokes has a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Accounting from the University of South Carolina. Richard also has a Riley Institute - Diversity Leaders Initiative from Furman University. For their Master's degree, they studied Health Administration at the University of Phoenix. Richard also has a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Accounting from Winthrop University and a Certificate in LEAN Six Sigma from Villanova University. In addition, they are certified by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) as a Healthcare Financial Management Association Fellow (FHFMA) and as a Certified Healthcare Finance Professional (CHFP). Richard is also certified by the SC Department of LLR – Board of Accountancy as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Richard Stokes reports to Van Loskoski, Chief Executive Officer. They are on a team with and Deborah Block - Chief Nursing Officer.
Current role