Ted Wang, CFO of John Muir Health

Summary

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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Summary

Guest: Ted Wang, CFO of John Muir Health
Host: Madeline Ashley
Date: August 22, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ted Wang, newly appointed CFO of John Muir Health, joins host Madeline Ashley to discuss pressing trends in healthcare finance, the ongoing impact of new legislation, John Muir’s culture of collaboration, and their strategies for growth and patient care. Ted also reflects on the unique culture at John Muir that has enabled success and shares what excites him about the organization’s future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Ted Wang’s Background and John Muir Health Overview

• Ted's Experience:

  • Over 25 years in healthcare across governmental, for-profit, non-profit, and academic settings.
  • Previous roles include CFO at UCSF Health, overseeing pediatric and Mission Bay operations.
  • Academic credentials from UC Santa Barbara (undergrad) and Cornell University (Master’s in Health Administration).
  • Recently joined John Muir Health, bringing a depth of fiscal experience.
  • “It’s been a short and long seven months, exciting months.” (00:57)

• John Muir Health System:

  • Three-hospital system: Walnut Creek, Concord, and an acute psych facility in Concord.
  • Outpatient behavioral health services complement the psych hospital.
  • 6,500 employees systemwide, with multiple joint ventures (UCSF for cancer services; Stanford for pediatric specialties).
  • Operates a wide range of services: surgery centers, home health, risk-based payer arrangements. (01:35)

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Top Trends in Healthcare (As Seen by the CFO)

1. Regulatory Environment

• Monitoring of significant new legislation, referred to as “the one big beautiful bill” passed on Independence Day:
  • Anticipated impacts on medical reimbursement, shifts in Medi-Cal eligibility, reduced premium subsidies, and provider tax changes.
  • Concern about broader financial impacts on hospitals nationwide.
  • Medicare sequestration (4% at risk for providers) presenting further uncertainty.
  • “One of the elephants in the room is the one big beautiful bill that just got passed on Independence Day...there’s a big unknown, but we all are anticipating a sizable cut and impact to our financials.” (03:20)

2. External Payer Pressures

• Ongoing negotiations and collaborations with payers, particularly around Medicare Advantage rate pressures.
• Monitoring value-based care contracts: pay-for-performance, shared risk, ACOs, and capitation arrangements.
• Navigating Medicaid/Contra Costa Health Plan as the primary medical insurer for the region.
• “From a payer perspective, we always like to look at it through their lens, as we are partners with them in this health care delivery complex system.” (05:15)

3. Internal Impacts and Operational Efficiency

• Strategic financial modeling in response to external changes.
• Direct implications of regulatory changes (e.g., provider tax, site neutrality, 340B) assessed for the health system.
• Focus on improving operational efficiencies, hospital throughput, patient access, and identifying growth opportunities.
• “Looking at what we can do internally within our health system dealing with either operational efficiency, managing length of stay or increasing access and how do we...pay very close attention in terms of where we want to grow.” (05:53)

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Navigating Legislative Uncertainty

Focus: Adapting to the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' [06:18]

• The bill introduces cuts via the provider tax, capping the ceiling payment, and changing federal-state funding formulas (FMAP).
• John Muir Health is not immediately affected by the new cap, but ongoing vigilance is required.
• Uncertainty around future state responses and Medicaid eligibility losses, which could increase uncompensated care.
• Importance of proactive communication and staying engaged with state and county partners.
• “A lot of that is going to be communication and constantly keep a close eye in terms of how all of these stakeholders are going to react to cutbacks...The reality is that it’s going to, you know, this is all downside.” (08:08)
• Memorable moment: Ted quantifies the current challenge:
  “The medical population we serve today, health system wide to Contra Costa county, we’re already at a loss of $180 million a year. So that in itself is a challenge.” (08:58)

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John Muir Health’s Culture and Recent Successes

Focus: Organizational Strengths and Recognition [09:40]

• Ted expresses strong pride in John Muir’s unique, collaborative culture.
• Describes the “John Muir Management System” of continual improvement and intentional team connection.
• Attributes national and statewide accolades to this culture:
  • #1 in California for 30-day survival rates after coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CMS report).
  • Both Walnut Creek and Concord campuses ranked as top regional medical centers in 2025 U.S. News.
  • Ranked #2 and #3 in the San Francisco metro area, surpassing major regional competition.
• “Being ranked two and three is just remarkable and really validates our culture and our ability to achieve these accolades.” (12:22)
• Ted’s enthusiasm for the culture:
  • “I haven't seen anything at the degree of John Muir Health…we're very collaborative and sensitive to each other.” (09:58)
  • “I am just so impressed and just so thankful to be part of this culture.” (13:12)

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Growth and Strategic Expansion

Focus: Access, Capacity, and Expansion Efforts [13:20–18:05]

• Managing Existing Hospital Demand:

  • All acute hospitals experiencing high volumes.
  • Active pursuit of inpatient efficiency: length of stay management, throughput, expediting safe discharges.
  • Physician network of 1,200+ doctors focused on market-competitive access, with nearly 340,000 patients served in 2024.

• Value-Based Care:

  • Deepening insurer partnerships for more sophisticated pay-for-performance, risk-sharing, and capitation models.
  • Emphasis on moving upstream toward primary care to reduce inpatient costs.

• Outpatient & Specialty Growth:

  • Opened the $300M Gene and Ken Hoffman Cancer Center (“one-stop shop” for modernized cancer care with UCSF specialists).
  • Opened a 52,000 sq ft outpatient center in San Ramon (urgent care, family medicine, pediatrics, cardiology, endocrinology, imaging).
  • Phase 2 expansion of the San Ramon site (planned for Jan 2027): expands to 90,000+ sq ft, adding 24 more physicians, expanding urgent, primary, women’s, oncology, and imaging services.

• “We are constantly trying to think about how do we care for our patients and providing greater access from an existing capability and capacity...How do we become more efficient from an inpatient population.” (13:41)

• “We called it the Gene and Ken Hoffman Cancer Center. First, I got to say, so, so grateful to our philanthropist for, for helping us build this $300 million outpatient cancer center.” (16:34)

• “We are also planning to do a phase two in this Bishop Branch 15 and the ETA on that is January of 2027, where we’re going to increase our space…incorporating an additional 24 docs…expand on new capabilities such as oncology and imaging, including CT and MRI.” (17:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s going to be a very dynamic, it’s going to require dynamic actions from us.” — Ted Wang, on responding to legislative change (06:41)
• “The reality is that…this is all downside.” (08:18)
• “Being nice and having that nice, pleasant culture is one thing, but the other piece is that we’re very collaborative and sensitive to each other.” (10:04)
• “We constantly try to make sure we are market competitive so we have the necessary access to care for our community.” (14:29)
• “Sometimes the best way to reduce health care cost is to avoid the inpatient stay.” (15:28)
• “I am just so impressed and just so thankful to be part of this culture.” (13:12)

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Episode Timeline

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00-01:27| Ted’s background and introduction | | 01:27-02:37| John Muir Health system overview | | 03:04-06:18| Top industry trends and regulatory pressures | | 06:18-09:17| Strategic response to landmark legislation | | 09:40-13:20| What excites Ted about John Muir: culture and recent awards | | 13:20-18:05| Growth strategy: capacity, access, new centers, partnerships |

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Conclusion

Ted Wang provides an in-depth look at both the immediate financial challenges posed by government regulation and funding shifts, as well as the unique cultural drivers behind John Muir Health’s continued excellence. With a balanced focus on navigating uncertainty, optimizing internal processes, and expanding outpatient and specialty care, Wang’s leadership perspective is both pragmatic and optimistic. The collaborative, improvement-focused culture at John Muir Health is highlighted as a key ingredient in the system’s success and resilience going into 2026.

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Transcript

[A]

This is Madeline Ashley with the Becker CFO and Revenue Cycle Podcast. And I'm so excited to be joined today by Ted Wang, CFO of John Muir Health. Ted, thanks so much for being on with me.

[B]

Hi Maddie, Great to be here.

[A]

Wonderful. So Ted, before we begin, do you mind sharing with our listeners a little bit about yourself, just your background in healthcare and then also a little bit more about your organization.

[B]

Sure, Glad to. So, a little bit about myself. I have over 25 years of healthcare experience. I've been in multitude of provider settings ranging from governmental, for profit, not for profit, as well as academic, medical center. And I started my career as a fiscal intermediary as well as the internal audit and then transitioned to the accounting side as the assistant controller and then worked myself up the corporate ladder to be Controller, Assistant, CFO. And then about 12 years ago as CFO, I joined John Muir Health back in January. It's been a short and long seven months, exciting months. Prior to John Muir, I was the CFO for UCSF Health overseeing their children's enterprise, the Oakland Hospital as well as Mission Bay. Then I'm a graduate from UC Santa Barbara and I got my Master's in Health Administration from Cornell University.

[A]

Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that about yourself. Do you mind diving just a little bit deeper into John Muir Health and kind of explaining the system to us?

[B]

Absolutely. John Muir Health is a three hospital health system. We have a hospital at Wanna Creek, another hospital in Concord, and then we have a acute psych in Concord right next to our Concord campus. And in addition to that we have a outpatient behavioral health center that complements our acute psych facility. We have about 6,500 employees across the enterprise and we have multitudes of joint venture so with the likes of UCSF Health for our cancer services, we also have joint venture of Stanford Health as relates to our pediatric specialty services and multitude of surgery centers, home health, as well as other risk based arrangements for payers.

[A]

Wonderful. I appreciate you diving a little bit deeper there. Ted, to kick us off here. As you said, you have, I believe you said, 25 years of healthcare experience. So as I'm sure you're very aware, the healthcare industry ebbs and flows and we're always seeing lots of changes. So with that in mind, do you mind sharing two to three trends that you're closely following right now in your, in your new role here at John Muir Health just seven months in, like you said, and, and maybe why these trends are so important to you?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. So the way I look at It, Maddie, is, you know, I look at it through the regulatory lens as number one. And then secondly, what, what has happened kind of external to our health system, John Muir Health. And then third is the internal impact to health systems like John Muir. So as I kind of think about regulatory, I think one of the elephant in the room is the one big beautiful bill that just got passed on Independence Day. So the impact of that obviously is there's a big unknown, but I think we all are anticipating a sizable cut and impact to our financials, including the medical reimbursement. Either it's the eligibility shift away from medi Cal to uninsured, whether or not is the premium subsidy that's going away or whether or not that's provider tax that's being capped or being cut, that would have severe impact on hospitals across, across the nation.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then I would also say, you know, the indirect consequence of that is the Medicare sequestration, the 4% at risk for hospital providers. So that's also nerve wracking as well. And I think separately we're also closely following site neutrality, 340B et cetera as those are more high impact issues that we're closely monitoring then from an external to health system. We always look at this through our payer lens because we constantly either negotiate or collaborate with them, you know, as it relates to Medicare Advantage products. So as an example, you know, in 24 they got a very minimal increase. Putting a lot of pressure to the bottom line. Glad to see that for the upcoming year they're getting really more of a reasonable rate increase. And then value based care as we constantly think about either pay for performance, sheer risk, aco relationship we have with them as well as capitation. And then medi Cal as many of our, you know, the medical plans have been centralized. We deal with Contra Costa Health plan as our, as our primary medical insurance. So from a payer perspective, we always like to look at it through their lens as we are partners with them in this health care delivery complex system. And then lastly on the internal health system, you know, just really modeling out all the impacts that would have with us directly. So the provider tax would be one big beautiful bill. The potential impact of site neutrality or 340b the indirect impact that it has with our payers as it relates to mas value based care. And then I would say lastly is looking at what we can do internally within our health system dealing with either operational efficiency, managing length of stay or increasing access and how do we. And then and also pay very close attention in terms of where we want to grow.

[A]

And you touched on it kind of in the beginning. Just in terms of the one big beautiful bill that was passed on July 4th. There are a lot of unknowns and I think a lot of financial leaders right now are, I wouldn't say scratching their heads, but they're definitely going, okay, if this, then what? So could you share maybe your strategic plan, your plan of attack for how you're going to handle this as it sort of unfolds?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I think that is a, that is a interesting question. And it's going to be a very dynamic, it's going to require dynamic actions from us. Because as an example, when we think about the provider tax, perhaps that's probably the one, one of the main pain points, you know, when we think about the Fed capping out the ceiling payment from a 6% net patient revenue from 6% down to three and a half percent, you know, in terms, you know, and if you exceed that, then how do you react to that cap? And the way we look at that is fortunately for us, we're not near, we're not near that cap. So holistically, at least under this lens, fingers crossed that, you know, that impact is minimal. And as relates to the state directed payment where they are limiting a per case not to exceed the Medicare rates. And I think that's the piece we are constantly having a dialogue with our county, with our state to figure out how are they going to kind of do this in terms of finding scale down in reimbursement. And then of course, the third component as relates to provided tax is the, you know, is the FMAP, the federal matching assistant percentage, kind of reducing the 90% matching from a fed perspective down to 50%. And we just don't know how the state is going to react to that in terms of scaling back reimbursement to all providers. So I would say, I would say, Maddie, like a lot of that is going to be communication and constantly keep a close eye in terms of how all of these stakeholders are going to react to cutbacks. I mean, the reality is that it's going to, you know, this is all downside. So it's, you know, and constantly think about how, how the state is thinking about it, how the Fed is thinking about it as they think about, you know, scaling back. And of course, I think the one other piece on the one big beautiful bill is the loss in eligibility. So we constantly have to think about how do we take care of our patients with limited funds. Because as an example, the medical Population we serve today, health system wide to Contra Costa county, we're already at a loss of $180 million a year. So that in itself is a challenge. But at the same time, we also acknowledge that the cost of healthcare is unaffordable and we need to kind of figure out solution together.

[A]

No, I mean, as you said, communication is definitely key. So I'm sure you're like you said yourself and many other financial leaders are keeping an eye on this right now. I'd like to shift gears a little bit. And again, as you mentioned, you've been with the system now seven months. So could you maybe share with me what you're most excited about right now at John Muir Health maybe for the rest of this year leading into 2026?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. So I would start by saying the one piece that I'm extremely proud of and it's also the reason for my joining is the culture at John Mu Health. So throughout my health system I seen pleasant places with very positive culture, high employee engagement, but I haven't seen anything at the degree of John Muir Health. And don't get me wrong, I think being nice and having that nice, pleasant culture is one thing, but the other piece is that we're very collaborative and sensitive to each other. So I think as you kind of think about the John Muir Health model, I mean we call this the John Muir Management system where we focus on continual improvement in terms of rolling our mission, thinking about how to improve the health of communities we serve with quality and compassion. So we constantly focus on, on problem solving, we constantly think about true north and we constantly thinking about measurement and how do we kind of continue to have those three key elements that feedback to one another. But ultimately we're very intentional in connecting with each other, explaining with each other and really working together as a team to achieve all of our mission and goals and objectives throughout John Muir Health. I would say the foundational of that has really got us to attain numerous accolades that I'm extremely proud of. So for one, CMS published a report in terms of that recognized John Mu Health or Conquer campus for best coronary artery bypass graft surgery 30 day survival rate. We came in number one in the entire state of California. And then in addition to that, I think per the more recent 2025 U.S. news, both of our campus, the Concord Medical center as well as our Walnut Creek Medical center were recognized as the best regional medical centers within the, within the U.S. news. So this is the cutoff is about 10% of the total population. You know, in Terms of the compare group. And I would also say that both, both of our campus, Concord as well as Wanna Creek actually came in ranked second and third amongst all hospitals in San Francisco metro area. So as you kind of think about not only the San Francisco city and county, but to the north of that, going maybe 20, 25 miles north in Marin, going about 25, 30 miles south down to San Mateo and going about 40 miles east all the way to Contra Costa county, including Alameda County. Being ranked two and three is just remarkable and really validates our culture and our ability to achieve these accolades. So proud of that.

[A]

Yeah. And I mean you do, you sound proud and that's so exciting to hear. And honestly, as you mentioned, it seems like it's all surrounding that collaborative piece that you touched on.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

The secret to the sauce.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's right. And I am just so impressed and so, and just so thankful to be part of this culture.

[A]

Oh, that's incredible to hear. Ted, could you share with me how you're thinking about growth at the system over the next 12 months with all of this excitement happening and just the success of the system? How are you looking at that?

[B]

Yeah, so I'll, I'll start off by saying that all of our acute hospitals are extremely busy today and we are constantly trying to think about how do we care for our patients and providing greater access from an existing capability and capacity. We have a tremendous focus on how do we become more efficient from an inpatient population. We constantly look at our length of stay, how do we expediting our care as soon as patients don't need to be at a hospital, how do we ease their way and expedite their discharge in a safe and effective manner. And we also apply that to our rooms, our imaging laboratory, etc. And then I would also say, you know, from a physician network perspective, we have about 1200 or so docs that's part of our network, you know, is looking at how do we increase access. Either you measure it based on your typical productivity, such as number of patients seen per hour. We constantly try to make sure we are market competitive so we have the necessary access to care for our community. Because when you look back in 2024, John Muir Health collectively service nearly 340,000 patients. And given the limited resources and the cost of healthcare, obviously we want to optimize that. And then the other piece I would say is as we continually to collaborate with our insurers, value based care is always top of mind. How do we continue to bolster our arrangements with them as relates to pay for performance, share risk, ACO or full cap. And then ideally with the intention that we want to move upstream because sometimes the best way to reduce health care cost is to avoid the inpatient stay. And obviously that goes to the primary care aspect of things. Then I would also say outside of our acute side, really excited about our opening last year of our cancer center at Bering Pavilion. We called it the Gene and Ken Hoffman Cancer Center. First, I got to say, so, so grateful to our philanthropist for, for helping us build this $300 million outpatient cancer center. And it's a one stop shop that provide the highest, the modernized facility, the best equipment that the industry has to offer and I would say the best docs that's available not only within the John Muir Health Network and specialists, but we also partner with UCSF to provide that added subspecialty for the patients that come to us. And then the other piece I would say that, that we're really excited about is in May, about two months ago, we just opened up our our outpatient center down in San Ramon. So it's a 52,000 square feet that consists of 30 physicians and they are staffing for urgent care, family medicine, pediatrics and many specialty care such as cardiology and endocrinology. We also provide ancillary services such as medical imaging, including ultrasound, mammography and X rays. Then we are also planning to do a phase two in this bearing in this Bishop Branch 15 and the ETA on that is January of 2027, where we're going to increase our space from a 52,000 square feet to over 90,000 square feet by incorporating an additional 24 docs. Not only one, bolster what we already have, including urgent care, primary care and specialty in women's, but also expand on new capabilities such as oncology and imaging, including CT and mri. So we're just very excited about kind of all the activities that's going on both within our kind of core service area as well as expanding out to South Contra Costa County.

[A]

Well, Ted, it truly sounds like a time of opportunity and growth for John Muir Health. I really appreciate you diving deeper into the growth right there. It really has been such a pleasure chatting with you. I'm so excited to connect with you again down the line and I look forward to seeing more exciting things come out of Draw Me youe Health. So thank you for chatting with me today.

[B]

Hey, it's a pleasure. Thank you, Maddie.