HIM 660 is SNHU’s HIM Strategic Planning and Financial Management course. It centers on strategic planning and financial management for health information leaders: mission and vision, environmental analysis and SWOT, revenue cycle performance measures, payment models from fee for service to bundles and shared savings, goals and balanced scorecards, operating budgets and variance analysis, forecasting, return on investment, net present value, payback and presenting a plan to executives. Every module below opens a full sample paper or takes a free request for one; searches like "him 660 module 3", "HIM660 sample paper" and "HIM 660 milestone example" land on this page.
What HIM 660 is really about
HIM 660 is where MS Health Information Management students at SNHU join planning to money, and its rubrics reward plans that rest on measured performance. Graders expect an honest assessment of where the department stands, goals stated as numbers with dates, initiatives chosen because the data point to them and financial analysis that shows its assumptions, its discount rate and what happens if the assumptions are wrong.
Every sample here follows a composite HIM director at Kanawha Ridge Health, a system of one 260-bed regional hospital and one 70-bed community hospital outside Charleston. Discharged accounts wait close to seven days for final coding, about 12% of claims are denied on first submission, vacancies have pushed contract coding to well over its budget and the system has no clinical documentation improvement program. Medicaid pays for an unusually large share of its patients. The director and system are illustrative.
What HIM 660’s modules ask for
Across ten modules, HIM 660 typically asks for discussions and a journal on planning, payment models and the effect of finance on patients, short papers on the environment and on budgets and a closing reflection; the final project grows in three stages: a strategic assessment, goals and initiatives and a financial analysis, combined into a strategic and financial plan for the department.
Where students lose points in HIM 660
The most frequent HIM 660 deduction is a plan whose goals are not measurable, such as improving the revenue cycle, with no baseline or target. The second is financial analysis without visible assumptions: a return on investment stated as a single number, no discount rate, no ramp-up and no test of what happens if benefits arrive late. Graders also mark down SWOT tables that list generic trends, budgets read without adjusting for volume and initiatives that do not follow from the assessment. The fix is to measure first, set numeric targets and show every financial assumption.
The HIM 660 drawers
HIM 660 Module 1 Discussion example
An opening discussion in which the composite HIM director at a two-hospital West Virginia system notes that the system's strategic plan mentions health information once, in a sentence about technology, while bills wait almost a week for coding and contract coders run far over budget, and argues that a department plan is how HIM earns a voice in system decisions, drawing on Kaissi and Begun on planning and hospital finances, Begun and Heatwole on stale planning and Tseng and colleagues on what billing costs. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 2 Environmental Analysis Short Paper example
A short paper that scans the environment of a composite West Virginia system's HIM department, the shift toward payment tied to value, a tight coding labor market, computer-assisted coding and a heavy Medicaid mix outside; a seven-day coding wait, no documentation review and a loyal remote workforce inside, and sorts them into a SWOT table that points to three strategic questions, drawing on Burwell on federal payment targets, Campbell and Giadresco on computer-assisted coding and federal labor data. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 3 Final Project Milestone One example
The first milestone of the HIM 660 final project assesses where a composite West Virginia system's HIM department stands: a draft mission and vision tied to the system plan, ten performance measures with baselines and benchmarks, stakeholder interviews with finance, revenue cycle, physicians and coders, and four gaps ranked by financial and operational weight, the coding wait, denials, missing documentation review and contract labor, drawing on Begun and Kaissi on planning practice, Tseng and colleagues on billing costs and Castaldi and McNelis on documentation specialists. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 4 Discussion example
A discussion in which the composite West Virginia HIM director walks one heart failure patient through three ways of being paid, a per-stay payment, a 90-day bundle and an accountable care contract, shows what each asks of documentation and coding, and argues that the department should be judged on whether its data hold up after the claim is paid, drawing on Porter on value, Joynt Maddox and colleagues on bundled payments for medical conditions and Burwell on federal payment targets. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 5 Final Project Milestone Two example
Milestone Two turns a composite West Virginia HIM department's four ranked gaps into five goals with baselines, targets and dates, chooses three initiatives, a documentation improvement program, remote coder hiring with a computer-assisted coding trial and a denial prevention team shared with revenue cycle, and arranges the measures in a balanced scorecard with owners, drawing on Amer and colleagues on balanced scorecards in health care, Castaldi and McNelis on documentation specialists and Campbell and Giadresco on computer-assisted coding. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 6 Budget Short Paper example
A short paper that reads a composite West Virginia HIM department's fiscal 2026 operating budget line by line, a $4.70 million budget against $4.92 million spent, shows that higher discharge volume and the swap of vacant staff positions for contract coders explain most of the $220,000 overrun, adjusts labor for volume with a flexible budget, and builds next year's budget from a volume forecast and a plan to convert contract hours, drawing on Kaplan and Anderson on time-driven costing, Tseng and colleagues on billing costs and Hyndman and Athanasopoulos on forecasting. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 7 Final Project Milestone Three example
Milestone Three tests whether a composite West Virginia HIM department's three initiatives are worth funding: a documentation improvement program, a coder workforce plan and a shared denial team, each with three years of costs and benefits, a 6% discount rate, return on investment, net present value and payback, a check against double counting and sensitivity cases that show the documentation program loses money if its gain is half the estimate, drawing on Castaldi and McNelis, Campbell and Giadresco and Tseng and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 8 Journal example
A journal entry in which the composite West Virginia HIM director, while building denial forecasts, reads a letter from a retired miner billed $1,840 for a scan his insurer denied over a missing authorization, and reflects on how a write-off line hides who pays when the system's paperwork fails, drawing on Horný and colleagues on who bears the burden of claim denials, Kluender and colleagues on medical debt and Tseng and colleagues on billing costs, and resolving to add a patient measure to the denial plan. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 9 Final Project example
The HIM 660 final project combines the milestones into a three-year strategic and financial plan for a composite West Virginia HIM department: mission and vision tied to the system plan, a baseline of ten measures, five dated goals, three initiatives with a combined net present value near $2.4 million, a phased documentation launch set by sensitivity testing, a timeline, a scorecard, a patient measure for denials and the request to the chief financial officer, drawing on Kaissi and Begun, Amer and colleagues, Castaldi and McNelis, Burwell and Horný and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
HIM 660 Module 10 Reflection example
Closing HIM 660, the composite West Virginia HIM director admits to having seen budgets as something finance did to the department and describes three shifts: speaking in the chief financial officer's terms, trusting a number only after trying to break it and counting the patient a model leaves out, with Begun and Heatwole on complacent planning, Hyndman and Athanasopoulos on forecast ranges and Horný and colleagues on who bears denials, and a promise to present the pilot result even if it kills the documentation program. Full sample paper, read it free.
Your classroom shows something else?
Southern New Hampshire University revises courses; module counts and deliverables shift between terms. Send what your classroom shows and the desk matches it exactly.
Using a HIM 660 sample the right way
Read an HIM 660 sample by checking whether goals carry baselines, targets and dates, whether initiatives follow from the assessment and whether the financial analysis shows its assumptions and tests them. For HIM 660, bring the prompt, your department's figures or the course case and the rubric; a first custom sample is returned free in 24-48h.
HIM 660 questions, answered
What does HIM 660 cover?
Strategic planning for HIM departments, environmental analysis, revenue cycle measures, payment models, goals and scorecards, budgeting, variance analysis, forecasting and the financial evaluation of initiatives.
Do I need a finance background for HIM 660?
No, but expect to calculate variances, return on investment, net present value and payback periods and to explain the assumptions behind them.
What makes a strong HIM 660 paper?
Measured baselines, numeric targets with dates, initiatives traced to the assessment and financial analysis that shows and tests its assumptions.