by John Howser
James Newman, MBA, CPA, Associate Vice President for Finance, has been named Vice President of Finance and Divisional Chief Financial Officer for the Clinical Support Services Division for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He will begin this new role on Jan. 1, 2024.
As VP and CFO for Clinical Support Services, Newman will report to Cecelia Moore, MHA, CPA, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and will partner with Chad Fitzgerald, JD, Executive Vice President and director of the Division. Newman will work with Fitzgerald to provide financial oversight for the new division that was formed in late 2022.
Newman, who also currently supports Revenue Accounting and Budgeting for the Vanderbilt Health System, along with providing financial leadership and oversight for Retail Specialty and Managed Contract Pharmacy operations, will continue to lead Revenue Accounting and Budgeting for the system.
“I am excited to be able to work even more closely with Jim. His extensive accounting and finance knowledge make him ideal to provide financial leadership to a diverse and critical set of functions supporting our clinical enterprise entities,” Moore said.
For his Health System Revenue accounting responsibilities, Newman will continue to report to Scott Phillips, MA, CPA, VUMC’s Chief Accounting Officer.
The Clinical Support Services Division supports VUMC’s various entities such as Vanderbilt University Hospital, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, along with Vanderbilt Health’s community hospitals and ambulatory clinics.
The division follows a shared services model and includes administrative and organizational alignment of pharmacy, laboratory and sterile processing services. Its mission is to ensure enterprise alignment, economies of scale and operational synergies, and standards of best practice enhancing quality, patient safety and compliance while eliminating variability.
At VUMC, historically, most clinical support services resided as single entities and were allocated to serve various other Medical Center entities. Due to VUMC’s expansive growth, core services have reached the scale at which the shared services model, creating greater alignment, standardization and efficiencies for these services, were implemented.
“I have had the privilege of working with Jim over the years and was ecstatic to hear he would be expanding his role with Clinical Support Services,” Fitzgerald said.
Newman joined VUMC in 2011 as director of Finance, Hospitals and Institutes where he supervised a team of financial officers at three of VUMC’s hospitals and its ambulatory clinics. In this role Newman served as the primary financial contact for economic repositioning initiatives requiring analysis, selection and post implementation reporting of activities with a goal to produce significant financial improvement for the clinical enterprise.
In 2021 he was promoted to Associate Vice President for Finance where he has led a team responsible for revenue recognition and reporting for the VUMC consolidated clinical enterprise including technical, professional and hybrid reimbursement arrangements. In this role Newman also manages certain portions of the revenue cycle responsible for contract payment accuracy and EPIC facility structure.
“I am excited to continue to work with an exceptional group of colleagues providing financial support as we look to expand services and support our mission,” Newman said.
Prior to joining VUMC, Newman was a divisional CFO in the Mercy Health System and a senior manager in KPMG’s health care practice.
Newman earned a Bachelor of Science in accounting from Truman State University, where he also received his CPA, and a Master of Business Administration from Oklahoma Christian University. He was a 2014 Fellow in G.E. Healthcare’s Management Academy.