In simple terms, bookkeeping is the process of recording all financial transactions that take place within or involving your business. If your business is applying and/or utilising correct bookkeeping techniques, you will be able to keep track or your expenses and revenue with ease. By remaining both accurate and up to date on the financial situation of your company, you will be best equipped to make sound decisions regarding the growth of your business.
To effectively balance the delivery of quality patient care at a reasonable cost, companies within the healthcare industry need to correlate the cost of care with quality outcomes. This process is commonly referred to as cost accounting. A cost accounting system handles the recording, analysing and allocating of cost to the individual services provided to patients (including procedures, tests, medications and more). If implemented successfully, it can effectively streamline the process of deploying patient-level costs with efficient methods.
Read about some helpful medical bookkeeping strategies to assist your implementation (or maintenance) of cost accounting services below.
Seek Executive Sponsorship
As cost accounting is generally viewed as a financial initiative, it may not be held as a priority for clinical departments or personnel. It is therefore a beneficial idea to showcase the organisation-wide implications that cost accounting has for your business by preparing a comprehensive presentation to be delivered to your senior management team.
Cost Accounting Training
Covering the topic of cost accounting – particularly its concept, purpose and use – is a crucial step for employees at an organisation-wide level. As this is an essential aspect of most medical bookkeeping strategies, future training should also be encouraged, and should include topics such as flexible budgeting, basic cost accounting calculations, price/volume/efficiency variances and more.
Audit Internal Procedures
To boost accountability and your chances of success with a cost accounting system, take time to audit internal information services and procedures to ensure you receive the most accurate data as possible. In the same vein, ensure that whatever changes you are making internally are reflected externally – so that information gained (or particularly, added) is included within your cost accounting system.
