HS440 Finance for Healthcare
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Unit 9
PROJECT
Projects are designed for you to show your understanding of the course materials and your ability to communicate at the college level. Compose your essay using Standard American English as described in the APA guidelines available at Kaplan University Writing Center. You need to follow formal APA formatting for the project to include title page and reference page. Make sure you cite your reference in the text and on the reference page using proper APA format. You will find a Project Rubric used to grade the project in the syllabus. The project is due in the drop box by end of day (EOD) on Tuesday during Unit 9. Grades for the project will be available in the Gradebook by EOD on Sunday following the close of the unit. All times are in Eastern Standard Time. This project is worth a maximum of 200 points.
Instructions:
1. The foundation of your project is to apply three different allocation
methods (direct, step-down, double apportionment) to the situation
at a large group practice. The purpose is to give you some feel for how much variation in final allocation amounts is due to
methodological differences.
2. Scenario – You are CFO of the Maple Street Hospital. You have been asked to send a report to the Board of Directors regarding the
best method to allocate non-direct costs to the Medical Services,
Obstetrics and Emergency departments. Most of the people on the
board are not financial people. The report needs to make sure they understand all the concepts of allocation.
3. Your report is to be in the form of a paper. You should be concise
and to the point. Your paper should have a minimum of 5 pages
including title and reference page. The maximum is 8 pages. You will be graded on APA format, content, and grammar. You can
include table, graphs and spreadsheet within the report or as
addendums. You will be looking at pre-tax profit for each
department and for the whole. In the Doc Sharing area you will find the following reference for writing a report of this nature:
a. MclaughlinAPAResearchEssay.pdf
b. Writing a good report
c. Writing conclusions d. Writing Project Reports 2004a.pdf
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4. Your paper should include:
a. Explain why allocation methods are used.
b. Briefly describe the differences in the three allocation methods discussed in the case. (Hint: Don’t discuss the
mathematics of the schemes, but rather how they differ
conceptually.)
c. Which allocation method is best? d. What are the allocations to each patient services department,
and resulting profitability, for each allocation method?
e. What does the analysis indicate about profitability of each
patient services department with or without allocation? f. What is your recommendation regarding the appropriate cost
allocation method for the practice?
5. Much of the busywork has been eliminated with the use of a premade spreadsheet, enabling you to spend more time on
interpretation and evaluation. The spreadsheet information is on
the next page.
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