COST ACCOUNTING:

THE KEY TO MANAGING

PROFITABILITY IN
HEALTHCARE
by Jay Spence
COST ACCOUNTING AND SERVICE LINE
ANALYTICS STRATEGIES THAT WORK
2 Cost Accounting: The Key to Proftability in Healthcare
Managing the cost of patient care is the top strategic priority
of most hospital CFOs today. As advances in medicine
enable healthcare organizations to provide more effective and
specialized care than ever before, the cost of care for new
technologies, human capital, medical devices, drugs, and
administrative costs, continues to outpace reimbursements. As
healthcare shifts to more data-driven decision making, having
clear visibility into key volume, cost and proftability measures
across clinical service lines is becoming increasingly important
for both long-range and tactical planning activities. In turn, the
cost accounting function in healthcare provider organizations
is becoming an increasingly important and strategic function.
Decisions related to things like which service lines to grow
and expand and where opportunity for operational changes or
process improvement could drive hard-dollar savings all require
accurate and reliable patient-level cost and proftability analytics.
cost accounting and service line analytics
to drive decisions
Relying heavily on data to make decisions that impact
proftability, healthcare provider organizations need the right
data in a timely fashion to answer key questions and ultimately
drive decisions in their organization. Effectively using service
line volume, costs, and proftability metrics to support strategic
business decisions is becoming a requirement to support cost
containment initiatives and maintain or even grow proftability.
Hospitals are using this data to formulate integrated business
planning across their lines of service and infuence revenue,
reimbursements and most commonly operational plans.
Some of the most common questions answered with service line
analytics include:
Which services and patients are most proftable?
How are shifts in volume and mix of services impacting my
bottom-line over time?
Is there opportunity to infuence physician behavior to
impact the cost-of-care?
How do we establish budgets for the delivery of patient care?
How do I model/forecast how shifts in volume or mix impact
revenue and workload and overall proftability?
With insight into service line cost data and proftability analytics,
healthcare provider organizations can make informed decisions
on which service lines to grow and which might require
restructuring. With continual changes in the delivery of patient
care and downward pressure on reimbursements, healthcare
providers need visibility into key volume and proftability to
support sound strategic, fnancial and tactical planning.
challenges to effcient and accurate cost
accounting and service line analytics
Unfortunately, many organizations struggle to produce accurate
and timely views of service line volume, cost and proftability
analytics. Ineffective costing approaches are a direct result of
using antiquated technologies that are either too complex and
resource intensive to be effective or too simplistic to meet their
needs. Following are the three most common challenges to
successful cost accounting and service line analytics.
1. Detailed Costing Frameworks Prove Ineffcient
In the past, healthcare organizations mistakenly believed
highly detailed cost accounting systems would, by
defnition, produce more accurate results. These strategies
werent effective because they placed too much emphasis
on collecting the most granular level of detail rather
than identifying key drivers of cost that are consistently
captured on patient recordspractical data that could
actually support better business decisions. With all of
their excessive detailproviding breakdowns of a single
activity by job class and by prep, procedure, and post-
procedure time estimatescosting models became diffcult
to change and maintain. Because of their complexity,
costing models lacked the fexibility to support the dynamic
nature of healthcare such as adding new procedures or
revising or deleting other clinical processes. Additionally,
if organizations failed to revise costing models in a timely
manner, the resulting cost and proft metrics were neither
actionable nor valuable. Overwhelmed with unnecessary
detail and trapped by rigid frameworks, clinically-focused
decision makers found it diffcult to use, much less trust,
costing models and numbers.
2. Overly Simplistic Methods Prove Inaccurate
In stark contrast to highly detailed frameworks, many
organizations adopted percent of charge methodologies
that allowed costing models to be developed at patient,
procedure or even service line levels. This was a highly
effcient approach to establish proxy numbers for cost
but did not provide suffcient detail to generate buy-in
from clinical stakeholders. In turn, this data wasnt used
to identify true process of care differences or outliers that
might infuence the care delivery process- decisions that
could have a bottom-line impact.
3. Limited Buy-in and Management-Use from Executives
and Clinical Stakeholders
Another common roadblock to the strategic use of costing
data is establishing trust and buy-in related to the accuracy
of information being disseminated. For many, the effcient
3 Cost Accounting: The Key to Proftability in Healthcare
reconciling of aggregated year-to-date patient-level volume,
revenue and cost data back to the fnancial statements is
an important tollgate prior to releasing data, and a process
that is time-intensive for some, impossible for others. This is
especially true if more complex patient cost assignments are
done using standard costs, or highly detailed itemized activity-
driven methods that build-up activity related costs but have
little tie back to actual posted fnancial expenses. And even
for those organizations where auditing tollgates are in place,
their antiquated decision support systems make reporting a
challenge. Functioning like big calculators, the resulting output
must be downloaded and reformatted in disconnected, off-
line Excel models. This makes reporting a time and very
resource intensive effort. The lack of consistency, as well as the
timeliness of data delivered compromises its value and the data
does not contribute to (or infuence) strategic decision-making.
Ultimately, cost accounting problems undermine trust in costing
results. Without key stakeholders accepting that numbers as
accurate, senior level executives cannot rely on the information
to make the strategic decisions.
fve strategies to make cost accounting a
more strategic function
Whether your organization is plagued with ineffcient or
inaccurate cost accounting and service line analytics tools and
processes or you are exploring a solution for the frst time, its
important to employ best practices strategies and techniques
that have proven successful. The following fve best practices
should be considered regardless of where you are in the journey:
1. Structure a Costing Model that Balances Effciency
with Accuracy
Healthcare provider organizations are avoiding highly
simplistic patient-level (revenue of cost to charge (RCC)
approaches in favor of more activity-based approaches.
Using the charge master as a proxy for activity drivers is an
approach that makes sense in a hospital setting since it is
well-understood by department managers and is tracked
consistently on patient records. And by establishing costs at
this level of detail, it provides an accurate representation of the
utilization of services provided on a patient-by-patient basis.
Another decision point is determining how to structure costs
within the costing model. This is typically part of a mapping
exercise where actual GL level expenses are summarized into
summary categories, or cost pools. However, the trend is
to move away from highly summarized groupings (i.e., direct
labor, direct supply) into more refned categories (i.e., patient
care labor, implants, drugs). By doing so, the subsequent
step to allocate and assign costs from those cost pools
to the charge item level more broadly described as the
RVU development process can be more precise. Further,
as the diagram below suggests, it is ideal if the categories
developed carry-forward from fnancial views to patient-detail.
By doing so, you retain a level of granularity that supports the
downstream service line and population specifc analysis.
DATA MODEL CONSIDERATIONS:
Retain Detail Across Financial and Patient Views
4 Cost Accounting: The Key to Proftability in Healthcare
2. Refne Activity-Based Costs with Department
Manager Input
It is vital for department managers to be engaged in the
refnement of cost per test calculations for their area.
Manager participation not only promotes their buy-in to the
process overall, but their expert knowledge related to the
delivery of patient care activities will ultimately improve the
quality of the costs derived downstream at a patient level.
This collaboration provides an opportunity to challenge the
standard charge master as the best source of activity or
detail. As an example, be critical of nursing departments
where a simple room and board charger may not accurately
refect the true care delivered patient-by-patient. Many
organizations refect acuity levels to properly capture the
resources required to address more acute care patients.
Costing of medical supplies is another area where traditional
RVU-based costing methodologies should be replaced
with more refned direct costing methods. Managers
typically have knowledge of the source systems where
this information is updated and stored which can lead to
automated feeds of item costs into the model.
3. Streamline Data Validation and Reconciliation Tasks
Gaining sign-off from fnance on the validity of costing
results is an important step in the rollout process and should
happen ahead of releasing monthly or quarterly reports to
key stakeholders. This presentation should be an intuitive
walk-through of fnancial results starting with a consolidated
income statement from the fnancials and footnoting of
any variances that might exist to consolidated patient-level
costs. This dialogue with fnance often uncovers areas and
suggests methodologies for passing-thru specifc revenues
or overhead related costs directly to specifc patient
populations. Given fnances expanding role as a strategic
advisor to the organization in business planning activities,
gaining their confdence and trust in these numbers is
important.
EFFICIENT AND PRECISE CHARGE ITEM LEVEL COSTING:
Flexible Methodologies including, Time-Based, RVU, Direct Cost
5 Cost Accounting: The Key to Proftability in Healthcare
4. Provide Timely and Consistent Views of Service
Line Performance
Once the patient level database is audited, the information
is ready for management use. However, all too often, the
time and energy spent by the decision support team is
allocated heavily toward preparing one-off ad hoc analysis.
Instead, make a concerted effort as a decision support team
to be less reactive to ad hoc requests and more proactive
with comprehensive views of volume, cost and proftability
trends across service lines. These reports should not be
snapshots in time focused on a single time period
instead they should provide year-over-year comparisons
with meaningful per case and per visit measures. Analysis
should isolate the variables and drivers to changes in
margin, including payor mix shifts, changes net revenue per
case, or increased supply costs. Analytics should provide
drill-thru capabilities that help analysts offer explanations
related to why variances exist.
5. Assign Accountability to Clinical Service Lines
Even with a well-implemented costing methodology and
effective reporting, many organizations fail to achieve
value from their investment in decision support because
no one owns the results. To ensure action is taken on
opportunities identifed, many organizations are aligning
their organization structures along clinical service lines.
This helps foster a sense of ownership and accountability
around service line performance and provides the executive
attention and support needed to implement changes.
SERVICE LINE PERFORMANCE REPORTING:
Timely and Consistent Views of Volume, Revenue & Cost Trends
6 Cost Accounting: The Key to Proftability in Healthcare
Axiom EPMs approach to cost
accounting and service line analytics
Axiom EPMs unique performance management platform
provides the frameworks needed to perform accurate
patient-level costing but also offers the fexibility and control
needed to address unique requirements when needed. With
this, hospitals and health systems effectively streamline the
process of developing patient level costs with effcient and
repeatable methods that ensure timely and accurate reporting of
performance analytics across patient populations.
The following paragraphs highlight the key components of Axiom
EPMs solution for effcient and accurate cost accounting and
services line analytics.
Streamline Data Reconciliation and Validation Tasks
Axiom EPMs confgurable data model ensures that hospitals
and health systems can effciently integrate data from a variety
of fnancial and patient-centric sources to develop a rich data
source. Import processes are easily automated with system
notifcations and audit checks that streamline data validation
and reconciliation processes. By streamlining these important
data validation functions, time and resources are allocated away
from tedious auditing tasks toward more strategic analysis and
decision support functions.
Manage Cost Attributes and Overhead Allocations
As the business of healthcare is constantly evolving, many
healthcare organizations are struggling with outdated cost
accounting tools and processes that dont offer the fexibility to
address their changing needs. In contrast, Axiom EPM provides
organizations with the fexibility to assign operating expenses
into any number of Cost Pools, such as Direct Variable Labor,
Direct Variable Supplies, and High-Cost Devices). This level of
fexibility and control ensures that resulting patient-level costs
have the level of granularity needed to support actionable
management reporting.
Effciently Validate RVUs and Charge Item Costs
Axiom EPM also streamlines the review and update of RVUs by
Department Manager with intuitive on-line modeling. Automated
notifcations trigger when on-line models are available for review.
Intuitive views and instructions guide managers thru the update
process. Built-in Workfow tools help to streamline this update
and review process by monitoring the process associated with
changes or updates to Cost Factors and RVUs. With these
automation tools, the important process of validating Charge
Item costs becomes an effcient and repeatable process.
COST ACCOUNTING DATA & PROCESS FLOW
7 Cost Accounting: The Key to Proftability in Healthcare
Deliver Trended Views of Service Line Analytics
Axiom EPMs built-in reporting tools empower Finance
professionals to deliver insightful views of volume, cost, and
proftability measures across clinical service lines. With highly
fexible and confgurable formats, users are provided with
actionable information. Trended views of key indicators and
analytics can be presented at any dimension, including by
Service Line, DRG, Physician and Payor. And with powerful
ad hoc reporting capabilities, users can quickly drill from
consolidated reports to the underlying details, including to
patient and charge item detail levels. These interactive reports
can be accessed online through the Web-client, or distributed
automatically (including e-mail delivery).
Leverage Service Line Metrics to Improve Planning Accuracy
With Axiom EPMs unifed approach to decision support, Finance
can more accurately model the impact that changes that service
line growth will have across revenue and expense plans. This
integrated approach helps align strategic planning functions
such as growth and investment plans that are being evaluated to
key service lines with the impact modeling and budgeting that
is performed across nursing and ancillary departments.
LifePoint Hospitals a success story in
cost accounting and service line analytics
LifePoint Hospitals is a 57 hospital health system operating in
20 states with $3.5 billion in annual revenue. Understanding the
costs at the service line level is critical to proftable operations.
Unfortunately, their manual method of calculating costs could
no longer support their operations. They faced two prominent
challenges:
Timely data - LifePoint was spending most of their time
processing, loading, reconciling, and validating data, instead
of analyzing the data and making decisions to improve
proftability. Processes that should take hours took weeks,
meaning decisions were delayed while profts shrank.
Disseminating information Managed almost exclusively
with Excel output, reporting and analysis was a tedious and
resource intensive effort. Analysts were spending value time
formatting data and creating and distributing manual reports
instead of analyzing data and identifying trends.
LifePoint Hospitals turned to Axiom EPM to help. Implementing
Axiom EPMs cost accounting and service line analytics solution,
LifePoint streamlined their cost accounting processes in a
myriad of ways. This, in turn, allowed Finance to shift away
from manual data tasks, and rather focus on strategic analysis,
making recommendations and ultimately driving decisions
to improve proftability. The main components of the solution
include:
Improved data model LifePoint developed a more
intuitive data model where cost detail is retained at the
patient level in the Axiom EPM platform.
Effcient, scalable data reconciliation Automated
processes across all 50+ hospitals allowed Finance to focus
on resolving data-driven exceptions and perform scheduled
audits to improve accuracy and reduce man hours.
Repeatable, timely report and analysis distribution
With this solution, analysts now spend the majority of their
time actually analyzing data and making recommendations,
rather than reformatting and distributing reports. LifePoint
executives now consume data easier thanks to more
intuitive formats and they have more timely access to data
and analysis to make decisions.
conclusion
With the pressure on healthcare provider organizations to deliver
and sustain healthy fnancial outcomes, having access to a
trusted source of service line cost and proftability analytics has
never been greater. High-performing organizations are leveraging
new technologies and implementing effcient and repeatable
processes that can balance accuracy with effciency so
information is more timely and accurate than ever before. While it
may seem pretty daunting organizations should choose at least
one strategy and begin working to put it into practice today.
about Axiom EPM
Founded by industry leaders with over two decades of
experience in enterprise planning and reporting, Axiom EPM
delivers performance management solutions for mid-sized and
large organizations around the world. Solutions for budgeting
and forecasting, reporting and analytics, strategy management,
capital planning, proftability and cost management are
delivered on a single unifed platform. Axiom EPM embraces
and extends familiar Microsoft Excel

functionality, allowing
fnance professionals to manage data in a familiar environment
while providing unmatched modeling fexibility and enterprise
performance.
8 Cost Accounting: The Key to Proftability in Healthcare
about author
Jay Spence
Director, Product & Solutions Strategy
Jay is responsible for the evolution and development of Axiom
EPMs enterprise performance management solutions. He
has over 20 years of practical industry experience, using
performance management technologies to improve fnancial
outcomes in fnancial planning, budgeting, service line cost and
proftability measurement, and productivity monitoring.
Prior to joining Axiom EPM, Jay served as Finance Director
for Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, the senior practice
manager for Eclipsys Corporations Business Solutions
Consulting Group and the senior director of healthcare solutions
for SAP BusinessObjects.
Axiom EPM is a trademark of Axiom Group LLC in the United States & other countries.
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