The manager's financial handbook. Cost concepts and breakeven analysis.
As the health-care environment becomes more competitive, laboratory managers need to become skillful in using and controlling their resources. Controlling resources usually means managing cost. By analyzing cost and understanding its different components, the laboratory manager can make rational decisions. This article describes and analyzes different categories within which cost can be characterized and shows how breakeven analysis can be used when dealing with fixed-price payers or multiple payment purchases of health-care services.
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Division of Laboratory Medicine and Division of Pathology, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA.
D003361:Cost Allocation / Q000379:methods*; D003363:Cost Control; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D005376:Financial Management / Q000379:methods*; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007449:Investments / Q000191:economics; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States