Healthcare finance leaders anticipate limited financial improvements in 2025, and are prioritizing operational improvements and cost management strategies over margin growth, according to a new report from Strata Decision Technology.

The 2025 CFO Outlook for Healthcare report, based on a survey of more than 100 healthcare finance professionals, found that 44% of respondents expect their organizations’ operating margins to remain unchanged this year. Meanwhile, 36% foresee an increase, while 14% anticipate a decline. Despite this tempered outlook, 96% of respondents expressed confidence in their teams’ ability to adapt to evolving financial and market conditions.

“The relative financial stability hospitals and health systems achieved in 2024 is a welcome success after navigating years of financial uncertainties,” said Alina Henderson, vice president of healthcare solutions at Strata Decision Technology. “Looking to the year ahead, healthcare leaders have confidence in their teams’ resiliency and focus as they continue to strengthen their organizations through targeted capital investments and strategic initiatives.”
Top priorities: performance improvement and cost control
When asked about their primary focus for 2025, 56% of healthcare leaders cited managing strategic and performance improvement initiatives. Other key priorities include measuring and managing productivity, monitoring financial performance across service lines, and reducing costs.

Financial stability remains a major concern, with 55% of respondents identifying margin management as their top challenge. Labor-related expenses also remain a pressing issue, with 52% pointing to rising labor costs, 42% highlighting payer rate negotiations, and 30% citing difficulties in labor recruitment and retention.

Data-driven decision-making remains a challenge
The report also underscores a continued push for better data utilization. While most healthcare organizations rely on external data sources — such as regional demographic data (79%), procedure volumes (72%), and labor benchmarks (67%) — 91% of respondents believe their organizations could better leverage financial and operational data to support strategic decision-making.

Investments in analytics and data-driven insights are a priority for 2025, with nearly three-quarters of respondents focusing on building better analytics capabilities. Comparative analytics and service line prediction tools also rank among key areas for investment.

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