Marginal Costs
A standard feature of the CostFlex
system is the mapping of direct and overhead expenditures to
cost accumulators based on a strategy that provides maximum
benefit to hospital management.
Briefly, there are 15 cost accumulators
maintained for each activity. Traditionally, the use of
these is as follows:
Accumulators
Usual Assignment
- 1- 5
Direct variable costs
- 6-10
Department overhead costs
- 11-15
Hospital overhead costs
For example, the following strategy
could be implemented.
Direct Variable Costs
-
1 & 2 - direct variable salaries for two different
skill sets
-
3 - direct drug expenditures
-
4 - other supplies
-
5 – implants
Department Overhead Costs
-
6 – Supervision and non-performing staff costs
-
7 – Support overhead labor costs (janitor services,
laundry, etc)
-
8 – Support overhead non-labor costs (utilities,
postage, building depreciation)
-
9 – Equipment depreciation
-
10 – Other Department Overhead
Hospital Overhead Costs
-
11 – Human Resources
-
12 – Legal and accounting
-
13 – information systems
-
14 – saved for future use
-
15 – Other Hospital Overhead
Any CostFlex report will reflect the
type of marginal cost selected interactively. With the
above strategy, the labor costs – direct and department
overhead – could be chosen as the only costs to be on
reports during that one analytical session.
