HA 610 Unit 8 Policy Recommendation Memo Example

Course	HA 610 Health Policy and Management
Unit	Unit 8
Paper type	Policy recommendation memo
Length	About 730 words, 4 pages
Format	Business memo with analysis, APA 7 references
School	Herzing University
Program	MS in Healthcare Administration
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for HA 610 Unit 8

Memorandum

To: President and Chief Executive Officer

From: Administrative Fellow, Finance and Strategy

Date: March 6, 2026

Re: Decision requested on a hospital price transparency policy for board approval in April

Recommendation and Decision Requested

I recommend that the hospital adopt a formal price transparency policy with four commitments: full compliance with the 2026 federal requirements by April 1, fixed-dollar terms in every commercial contract at renewal, an expanded consumer estimator covering the 100 most-searched services, and a written good-faith estimate, sent within two business days, whenever a patient plans a service. The decision requested is your approval to take the policy and its $185,000 first-year budget to the board finance committee on April 14.

Situation

Our machine-readable file is incomplete for five of fourteen commercial contracts whose terms for certain services are a percentage of our list price. The 2026 federal rule requires percentile allowed amounts for those services and a named attestation, with enforcement from April 1 (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS], 2025). Separately, our website estimator misses 38 of the 100 services patients search for most, and patient financial services logged 61 calls last year from patients who could not find or understand our posted prices.

The policy environment points in one direction. The House passed a bill in 2023 that would have written hospital price transparency into statute with dollar amounts and larger penalties (Lower Costs, More Transparency Act, 2023). A state bill with similar aims is before the Senate Health Committee this session, and we have testified in support with a request for a two-year phase-in. Research shows compliance has lagged nationally and the prices hospitals post and the prices staff quote frequently disagree (Jiang et al., 2022; Thomas et al., 2023). Hospitals that move early will have an easier path than those that wait.

Options Considered

Option A, minimum compliance only: meet the April 1 federal requirements and do nothing more. Cost $70,000. Rejected because it leaves patients unable to use our prices and leaves us exposed if the state bill passes.

Option B, the recommended policy: compliance plus the three further commitments. Cost $185,000 in year one, $40,000 a year after, not counting contract negotiation effort.

Option C, wait for legislation: comply minimally and adopt further measures only if the state or federal bill passes. Rejected because contract conversion takes two years and cannot be started after a law passes without risking noncompliance.

The Four Commitments

Each commitment has an owner, a date, and a measure.

Commitment	Owner	Date	Measure
Full compliance with the 2026 federal requirements, with a CFO attestation	CFO; Revenue Cycle Analytics	April 1, 2026	File posted and attested; internal review passed
Fixed-dollar terms in every commercial contract at renewal	VP, Managed Care Contracting	By each renewal; all five by June 2028	Number of percentage-based contracts remaining (baseline 5)
Estimator covering the 100 most-searched services with insured out-of-pocket estimates	VP, Revenue Cycle; IT	September 30, 2026	Share of top-100 services covered (baseline 62%)
Written good-faith estimates within two business days for planned services	Director, Patient Financial Services	July 1, 2026	Share of estimate requests met within two business days

What this page is doingThe commitments are listed with an owner, a date, and a baseline measure. That density is what makes a short memo actionable rather than advisory.

How We Will Know It Is Working

Four numbers will be reported to you quarterly, each with its baseline. The number of percentage-based commercial contracts, now five, should fall to zero by June 2028. Coverage of the 100 most-searched services in the estimator, now 62%, should reach 100% by September 30. The share of estimate requests answered within two business days, not measured today, will be measured from July. And calls to patient financial services from patients who could not find or understand a posted price, 61 last year, should fall by at least half within a year of the estimator expansion. If that last number does not move, the estimator is not doing its job, however complete the file behind it, and the policy will need revisiting. A short summary of these measures will also go to the board's quality committee, since price clarity affects patient experience as much as finance.

Risks and How We Will Manage Them

Revenue risk: some payers may seek lower fixed rates during conversion. We will model each contract's revenue effect before renewal and bring any conversion with a projected loss above 2% to you for approval. Attestation risk: the CFO signs for the file's accuracy. We will add a compliance review before every posting. Reputational risk: posting dollar prices will invite comparison with competitors. We are confident in our prices for most services, and where we are not, it is better to know. Workload risk: patient financial services will need about 0.5 additional full-time staff for estimates, included in the budget.

What I Need From You

Approval to place the policy on the April 14 finance committee agenda. A short conversation with the board chair before that meeting, since the contract conversion commitment affects revenue projections the board has already seen. And your agreement that the vice president of finance continues as our public voice on the state bill. The hospital is composite; the sources are published.

References

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2025). Medicare program: Hospital outpatient prospective payment and ambulatory surgical center payment systems; quality reporting programs; overall hospital quality star rating; hospital price transparency; and notice of closure of a teaching hospital and opportunity to apply for available slots. Federal Register, 90, 53448. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-20907

Jiang, J. X., Polsky, D., Littlejohn, J., Wang, Y., Zare, H., & Bai, G. (2022). Factors associated with compliance to the hospital price transparency final rule: A national landscape study. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 37(14), 3577-3584. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-021-07237-y

Lower Costs, More Transparency Act, H.R. 5378, 118th Cong. (2023). https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/5378

Thomas, M., Flaherty, J., Wang, J., Henderson, M., Ho, V., Cuban, M., & Cram, P. (2023). Comparison of hospital online price and telephone price for shoppable services. JAMA Internal Medicine, 183(11), 1214-1219. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.4753

The Herzing HA 610 Unit 8 instructions

Unit 8 asks you to write a policy recommendation memo to an executive, drawing on the course's work. Expect to state the recommendation and decision requested, describe the situation, compare options, set out commitments with owners, dates and measures, explain monitoring, name risks and say what you need from the reader. Students often ask how long the memo should be and how many options to include. Two pages and two or three options are typical. Lead with the recommendation. Commitments should be specific enough to track. Quarterly measures with baselines make progress visible. End with a clear request for the executive's action. State the patient benefit plainly, since it is the reason the policy exists.

Inside the HA 610 Unit 8 example

Two opening sentences carry the recommendation and the approval being sought. The situation section summarizes the compliance gap in the five percentage-based contracts and the risk it carries. The options section compares minimum compliance, the recommended policy and full immediate conversion in a few lines each. The commitments table lists four items with owners, dates and measures. The monitoring section names four quarterly numbers with their baselines. Each risk, from payer pushback to staff time, is matched with a planned response. The final section asks for specific actions, such as placing the item on the April 14 agenda and a short conversation with the board chair. The memo turns the course's earlier analyses into a decision an executive could approve.

HA 610 Unit 8 rubric: what full points look like

Herzing's rubric for a recommendation memo typically covers the recommendation, situation, options, commitments, monitoring, risks and the request. Commitments with owners, dates and measures carry the largest share, since they make the recommendation trackable after approval. Recommendation points reward a clear opening decision. Option criteria look for a fair comparison of real alternatives. Monitoring earns credit when quarterly numbers have baselines. Risk points go to specific responses rather than general caution. The request should be concrete and dated. Links to earlier course work, such as the impact memo's budget, are often credited. A two-page length is usually expected. The CMS rule and Jiang's study support the memo.

Common HA 610 Unit 8 mistakes, and how to avoid them

Recommendation memos in HA 610 Unit 8 commonly lose points by burying the recommendation. Another frequent problem is commitments without owners or dates. Students often skip baselines, so progress cannot be measured. Risks are generic, such as implementation challenges. The request to the executive is missing. Options are not real choices. Numbers differ from earlier units without explanation. The memo runs well past two pages. Patient benefit is not stated, though it is the policy's purpose. Finally, end with what you need from the reader, because graders reward a memo that leads to a decision. Another gap is forgetting who will communicate the policy to staff and patients once it is approved.

Get a HA 610 Unit 8 example written to your instructions

Send the Unit 8 instructions and the rubric from your HA 610 classroom, plus the decision the memo has to obtain and the evidence you have already gathered this term. We write a custom example with the options weighed, the criteria stated, the recommendation defended and implementation owned, returned in 24 to 48 hours. The first custom sample is free.

More HA 610 papers and healthcare administration samples

HA 610 Unit 8 questions, answered

How does this differ from the brief earlier in the course?

Audience and finality. A brief informs somebody outside the organization who may or may not act, while a recommendation memo asks an internal group for a specific approval and commits to who does the work afterward. The evidence often overlaps, but the memo is shorter, names owners and dates, and ends at a motion rather than at a suggestion.

Can the memo build on earlier work in the course?

In most sections yes, and continuity usually strengthens it, since a recommendation defended with evidence you gathered over the term reads as informed rather than assembled. Rewrite rather than paste, because the earlier work explained a policy while this one asks for a decision. Cite the same sources in full again, as a reference list does not carry across submissions.

Does the memo need a formal citation style?

Check the rubric, which in many sections holds professional documents to the same style as papers. Keep citations where the claims are, use the reference list at the end, and let the memo format govern the layout rather than the referencing. A document written for executives can carry full citation without reading like an essay.

Where can I find a free HA 610 Unit 8 sample paper?

Read the complete HA 610 Unit 8 recommendation memo here at no charge, a price transparency policy with four commitments and quarterly measures. Ask for a custom memo on another policy decision.

How do I write a policy recommendation memo to a hospital CEO?

Lead with the recommendation and the decision you need, summarize the situation, compare options, list commitments with owners, dates and measures, name risks and end with a specific request. This sample does that in about two pages.

HA 610 Unit 8 policy recommendation memo example