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Tom Siemers CEO, Dosher Memorial Hospital Southport, North Carolina

President Barack Obama's victory cements the Affordable Care Act, expanding coverage to millions but leaving weighty questions about how to pay for it and other care to be delivered to an increasingly unhealthy, aging population.

A study published last week by The Commonwealth Fund found that hospital sustainability efforts could save the healthcare industry up to $5.4 billion over five years and $15 billion over 10 years.

Patient participation in the payment for healthcare services has become more complex and challenging for healthcare providers. It is critical that providers receive payment in full for the services they provide as quickly as possible by overcoming some of the basic challenges in the payment collection process and by better understanding their customers and their propensity to pay.

Because healthcare providers operate in a highly regulated industry, most recognize that it is more a question of when, rather than if, they will be subject to a government investigation.

When I connected with bestselling author Patrick Lencioni before he spoke at the Medical Group Management Association's annual conference in San Antonio on Oct. 23, I asked him about the central message he intended to deliver in his speech.

Experts give their best advice on this new technology

By now, most medical professionals know the hard truth about healthcare delivery in this country: both cost and quality can vary greatly for the same medical procedure from region to region and often times from hospital to hospital in the same market.

Since the Affordable Care Act was created, critics have argued that the healthcare law fails to contain healthcare costs. A new brief from the Urban Institute presents evidence illustrating the ACA's cost containment measures, but leaves room for the debate to continue.