title: [Costing nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures].
abstract: To the Editor: Referring to a recent special report about the cost analysis of twenty-nine nuclear medicine procedures, I would like to clarify some basic aspects for determining costs of nuclear medicine procedure with various costing methodologies. Activity Based Costing (ABC) method, is a new approach in imaging services costing that can provide the most accurate cost data, but is difficult to perform in nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures. That is because ABC requires determining and analyzing all direct and indirect costs of each procedure, according all its activities. Traditional costing methods, like those for estimating incomes and expenses per procedure or fixed and variable costs per procedure, which are widely used in break-even point analysis and the method of ratio-of-costs-to-charges per procedure may be easily performed in nuclear medicine departments, to evaluate the variability and differences between costs and reimbursement - charges.
authors.affiliation: Medical Physicist MSc, Melenikou 9 Str., Edessa, Macedonia, Greece. markp@otenet.gr.
authors.forename: Pavlos
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Markou
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis / Q000379:methods; D006115:Greece; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018803:Models, Economic; D009683:Nuclear Medicine / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011859:Radiography / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*