Gerald P. Oetzel, MBA, has been named Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Temple University Health System and will join Temple in early September.
Oetzel has more than 39 years of experience in healthcare—including 24 years as a chief financial officer. As Senior Financial Executive of Bellin Health and Gundersen Health System for the past 4 ½ years, Oetzel’s work helped transform the financial growth of a $1.4 billion integrated healthcare network and pave the way for a successful merger between Gundersen and Bellin Health—creating a $3.0 billion, 11-hospital system with more than 100 clinic locations across Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, southeastern Minnesota and northeast Iowa. Gundersen and Bellin enjoy a national reputation as a financially strong health system with impressive quality clinical outcomes.
Oetzel’s strategic leadership helped modernize Gundersen’s financial operations leading to significant improvements in collection rates, reduction in payer denials, reduction in avoidable variation in care delivery utilization and supplies, and establishment of new investment programs. Oetzel’s optimization of Gundersen’s Epic Revenue Cycle functionality earned Gundersen an Epic ‘Gold Stars Level 10,’ putting it in the top 5% in the nation for Epic access and efficiency.
Oetzel is bringing that talent back to Temple Health, where he was CFO of Temple University Hospital from 2012-2019 and co-led a successful return-to-profitability strategy resulting in top-quartile cost measure rankings among academic medical centers. Before that, in his 14 years as Jeanes Hospital CFO, Oetzel’s strategic planning played a key role in the hospital’s merger into Temple Health, driving growth in hospital admissions, physician recruitment, and operations improvement.
“Colleagues who have worked with Jerry know he is a decisive team leader with a passion for discovering solutions to problems and a talent for combining big picture and analytical data. They also know him to be a genuine and considerate mentor—a team-builder full of optimism who loves teaching and seeks opportunities to develop and coach others to help them improve their skills and knowledge,” said Michael A. Young, MHA, FACHE, President and CEO of Temple Health. “Jerry Oetzel will be a tremendous asset to our leadership team as Temple Health continues to be a trailblazer among academic medical centers—setting quality, safety, and financial trends that earn national recognition.”
Michael DiFranco, CPA, will continue to serve as Interim CFO for Temple Health until Oetzel’s arrival in early September.