Opening an Outpatient Wound Clinic

Opening an Outpatient Wound Clinic

Categories in Budget (Fixed and Variable Expenses)

Budgeting for the outpatient wound clinic includes both fixed and variable expenses. Fixed costs are reported in the work of Swansburg (1997) to be unrelated to volume and to remain constant, as there are increases and decreases in volume over a time-period. Fixed costs are reported to include such as:

(1) Depreciation of equipment and buildings;

(2) Salaries;

(3) Fringe benefits;

(4) Utilities;

Interest on loans or bonds; and (6) Taxes. (Swansburg, 1997)

Variable costs do however "relate to volume and census. They include such items as meals and linen." (Swansburg, 1997) it is reported that supplies are usually volume responsive, meaning that total costs increase or decrease according to use." (Swansburg, 1997)

Direct and Indirect Costs

Direct and indirect costs of making the provision of service of product and are costs that are not "directly related to patient care, and include utilities, administration, housekeeping and building maintenance." ( ) These are however, direct costs for the source department. A cost-accounting system is reported to assign "all costs to cost centers. Periodic reports of costs are provided to cost-center mangers, but they do not reflect all costs." (Swansburg, 1997) There are reported to be indirect costs that are "allocated only once a year in the Medicare Cost Report." (Swansburg, 1997) Included are the costs of "utilities, accounting, administration, data processing, admitting, and other items." (Swansburg, 1997)

III. Description of the Major Differences between a Static Budget and a Flexible Budget and Best Choice for Budget

The static budget is a budget that is based "on a projected level of output, prior to the start of the period. The static budget is reported to be the "original budget" and the static budget variance is reported as the "difference between any line-item in this original budget and the corresponding line-item from the statement of actual results." (Caplan, nd) the line-item of most interest is reported as the bottom line or the total cost of production for the organization and its other cost centers and the net income for the profit centers."

The flexible budget is reported as a "performance evaluation tool" and is of the nature that cannot be prepared prior to the end of the period." (Caplan, nd) the flexible budge adjusts the static budget for the actual level of output and asks the question as follows: "If I had known at the beginning of the period what my output volume (units produced or units sold) would be, what would my budget have looked like?" (Caplan, nd)

IV. Steps for Preparing a Flexible Budget

Steps used in preparing a flexible budget are the following:

(1) Determine the budgeted variable cost per unit of output. Also, determine the budgeted sales price per unit of output, if the entity to which the budget applies generates revenue (e.g., the retailer or the hospital).

(2) Determine the budgeted level of fixed costs.

(3) Determine the actual volume of output achieved (e.g., units produced for a factory, units sold for a retailer, patient days for a hospital).