Business office innovations improve hospital cash flow.

The business office accounts for a major portion of hospitals' administrative and financial expenses. And, in the current shaky economic climate, hospitals faced with slowdowns and cutbacks in payments from a variety of sources are scrambling to come up with innovative ways to improve cash flow. "The hospital that has good cash flow will be the one able to survive," says George Arges, a senior policy analyst at the American Hospital Association's Division of Policy and Capital Finance in Chicago.