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The COVID pandemic took a drastic toll on an already struggling and underfunded behavioral healthcare system. In the wake of lockdowns, a greater need for psychiatric help is often met with endless waiting lists and bed shortages.

Hospital and health system CFOs have navigated many changes and challenges in the industry in 2021, including staffing shortages and rising inflation.

This year, dozens of finance leaders from hospitals and health systems across the U.S. shared their perspectives on a variety of topics with Becker's Hospital Review via podcasts and interviews. Below are quotes from 11 of those executives, discussing everything from the best piece of advice for their peers to their most pressing concern.

Lots of attention has been paid to Massachusetts’ unprecedented spending, made possible by once-in-a-lifetime federal largesse to pay for COVID-19-related needs. Behind the scenes, Massachusetts has also been saving.

The comptroller’s annual report for fiscal 2021, which ended June 30, reveals that Massachusetts’ stabilization fund is the largest it has ever been since the fund was established in 1986. The rainy day fund clocked in at $4.6 billion in fiscal 2021, a huge jump from $3.5 billion the prior year.

FITCHBURG — Rollstone Bank & Trust announced Friday a donation of $50,000 to the UMass Memorial Health’s HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital to expand local complementary care resources to cancer patients, according to a press release from the bank.

The donation will also be used to increase access to those most vulnerable populations that historically do not have access to life-saving preventative measures or subsequent cancer care.

Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday he is activating up to 500 members of the National Guard to assist hospitals with the COVID-19 surge and updating the state's mask advisory.

The state Department of Public Health released an updated mask advisory Tuesday urging all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask or face covering in indoor public spaces.

WORCESTER, Mass. - The number of people getting tested for COVID-19 at the Mercantile Center is rising.

There were more long lines outside of the testing center Monday.

UMass Memorial Health runs the site and said they expect to test more than 1,000 people both Monday and Tuesday.

Every morning in the Minneapolis metropolitan area, 200 to 400 people wait in an emergency room for a bed to come open.

“That’s the highest number ever,” said Dr. J. Kevin Croston, the CEO of North Memorial Health, which operates more than two dozen health care facilities in the area.

Since November, hospitals have understaffing, an escalation of behavioral health cases, and a worsening of a variety of diseases from over a year of delayed care. Now the surge in Covid-19 cases is spurring some hospitals to refuse to patients from other systems, close outpatient units and prepare “crisis standards of care.”

Amid surging COVID-19 infections, overflowing hospitals, and exhausted healthcare workers, Massachusetts hospital leaders are hanging on a glimmer of hope: some treatments, vaccines, and hard-won knowledge from the earlier outbreaks have meant fewer severely ill COVID patients.

And those who do need intensive care generally are recovering more quickly, doctors say.