Chart Of Accounts For Health Care Organizations

Recent changes in the healthcare industry have greatly complicated the hospital management task. For management and accounting purposes, clear lines of authority and clear definitions of responsibilities must be established. A chart of accounts is a system for organizing accounting information. This guide suggests ways to organize a chart of accounts of individual hospitals.

The Second Edition of Issues in Cost Accounting for Health Care Organizations is based upon a thorough literature review of all cost accounting articles published in the last five years. it is a resource of readings on the topic of health care cost measurement and analysis, and provides the insights of leading authorities in the area of health care costs. Each article is linked with the conceptual discussion in the companion volume, Essentials of Cost Accounting for Health Care Organizations .

This book provides a thorough coverage of the essentials of cost accounting from a health care perspective. It covers all of the basic tools of cost accounting common to all industries, and uses health care examples. Part I provides the reader with a solid foundation in the essentials of cost accounting. The chapters in this section provide an introduction to costing and cost definitions. Various approaches to product costing and cost allocation are discussed. Breakeven analysis is also covered, as are techniques for making nonroutine decisions. Part II presents a number of specific tools for improved planning and control. The chapters in this section focus on forecasting and prediction of future costs, budgeting, flexible budgeting, variance analysis, and management control. Part III addresses a number of additional cost accounting tools that can be helpful in generating management information for decision making. Specifically, there are chapters on cost accounting, productivity measurement, inventory, uncertainty, information systems, and performance evaluation. The criticisms of cost accounting and a number of suggested approaches for improvement are discussed in Part IV. The chapters in this part also examine activity-based costing, total quality management, and the future of costing. Each chapter is followed by one or more articles that apply some of the material discussed in the chapter. The last chapter provides a summary of the book.

This new Fourth Edition of Financial Management of Health Care Organizations, offers an introduction to the most-used tools and techniques of health care financial management, including health care accounting and financial statements; managing cash, billings and collections; making major capital investments; determining cost and using cost information in decision-making; budgeting and performance measurement; and pricing. New to this edition: The Perspectives sections and the glossary have been updated. The book features a cutting-edge view of the health care landscape in 2013 and beyond after passage and pending implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Areas of expanded content include revised examples of financial statements for both private non-profit hospitals and investor-owned hospital management companies, changes in bad debt and charity care, the role of financial statements, the discount rate or cost of capital, lease financing section, use of cost information, budgeting, cost centers, and current forms of reimbursement Content new to this edition includes valuation of accounts receivable and the "waterfall" effect of cash collections, differences between Posting-Date and Service-Date reporting methodologies, calculation of effective annual interest rate, application of time value of money in perspectives, and Activity-Based Costing from the perspective of labor, supplies, and equipment.

The authors draw on their years of teaching and consulting experience to produce a unique text that combines activity-based management approaches with a solid foundation of basic management accounting concepts.