Direct fixed costs result from any resource in the practice that is specifically involved in the delivery of the service, but the cost that is not directly related with volume of service delivered. With the pharmacy division of CVS focusing on prescriptions, the most substantial direct fixed cost of dispensing a prescription is personnel cost, especially the cost of the pharmacist. This typically represents about 50% of the cost of dispensing a prescription. Since the pharmacy staff that is scheduled to work on a particular day, this causes the cost of the practice to remain the same regardless of whether an additional prescription is dispensed that day. Their wages and benefits are also considered fixed costs for the corporation.
Variable
Fixed expenses are those that will be there everyday the lodge is open regardless of the number of skiers. The Lodge is open 200 days per year and the cost of running the new lift is $500 per day for the entire 200 days giving us $100,000 in fixed costs. Variable costs are the expenses based on the number of customers. There is an additional $5 expense per skier per day associated with the new lift. If there are 300 skiers multiplied by $5 each multiplied by the 40 days that they are expected to be on the lift, we will have $60,000 in variable expenses.
Bargaining Power of Buyers. This is the most concerned force because many companies in the drugstore industry start to do the same thing as Walgreens.
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that is usually used as a supplement to a company’s usual costing system, and is therefore used for internal decision-making. It is designed to inform managers of costing information for decisions (strategic and others) that potentially affect capacity and consequently “fixed” as well as variable costs. In addition, ABC can also be used to pinpoint activities that would benefit from process improvements.
1) Total Variable Costs are 60% of Total Costs; While the other 40% are from fixed costs.
Buchbinder, S. B., & Shanks, N. A. (2007). Managing Costs and Revenues. In (Ed.), Introduction to Healthcare Management ( ed., p. pp. -). : . []. doi: Retrieved from
CVS is offering benefits to and providing different programs to their customers in order to help redefine its direction and organization. Some of those programs include their Pharmacy Advisor and Maintenance Choice program which educates and assists patients with staying on their medications. CVS/Caremark also partnered with Medicare and Medicaid Services to inform patients about new services available to them under the
Variable costs: “Variable costs are costs that vary with the volume of activity”2 and they are: direct labor, Materials, Material spoilage & direct department expenses.
When a payer needs to reimburse a provider, there are two categories in which reimbursement can be done, fee-for-service (FFS) and capitation. Both the cost-based reimbursement model and the prospective payment model belong to the fee-for-service category where the payment made is linked with the total amount of services that are provided. In cost-based reimbursements, the costs paid by the payer are directly related to the supplying of healthcare services. The payer must agree to reimburse the provider by paying for all allowable costs that “incurred during the providing of services”.1 An example of cost-based reimbursement is Medicare, the version used for hospital payments back in between the years of 1966 and 1983. All in all, cost-based
Budgeting Assignment A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of a manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496)
Treating overhead costs as "fixed" can cause an unfair and highly misleading distribution of overhead costs which are in fact variable.
For years, the price of drugs have been held in congress because the cost of pharmaceutical drugs is the most controversial aspect of this industry. Stuart Schweitzer, a professor of health policy and management at the University of California Los Angeles, author of Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy, comments on this topic. According to Schweitzer, consumers are more sensitive to drug prices more than the price other health services. Schweitzer states, “Consumers are more likely to complain about a $50 bottle of tablets than a $500 radiology procedure, or a $5000 hospital stay”. This may be due the fact that these procedure and hospital stays are less frequent than taking prescription medication that is needed continuous. Most patients are seeing multiple doctors and nurses, that is accounting for the cost. Whereas at a pharmacy, they only see the pharmacist for a consultation and then the patient goes home to take their medication. Consumers may expect this to be cheaper because they are not receiving extensive care. To bring a new drug onto the market in the 1990s, it costed $359 million compared to $1.7 billion in 2003. Pricing of most products is usually based on marginal cost, which is the change in the total cost that comes from producing one extra item. However, this is not the case with the pharmaceutical industry because if prices were based on marginal cost, drugs would be a lot more
This paper presents an interpretation of payment reimbursement systems in the health care industry. Managed care is a health care delivery system that is organized to manage quality and cost utilization. A comparative overview and description of payment compensation will be given in order to understand the flow of finances in the health care industry. The focus will be on the capitation and fee-for-service reimbursement systems. Readers will then be able to conclude that the appropriate reimbursement method is reliant on upon the amount of risk a party is able to assume.
Project managers must take cost estimates seriously if they want to complete software projects within budget constraints. After developing a good resource requirements list, project managers and their software development teams must develop several estimates of the costs for these resources. There are several different tools and techniques available for accomplishing good cost estimation.
The overall purpose of cost accounting is to advise top administration and the management team on the most suitable and cost effective methods and actions to employ based on cost, capability and efficiencies of a given product or service. It can be defined as the method where all the expenditures used during execution of business activities are gathered, categorized, examined and noted down (Horngren & Srikant, 2000). Once these numbers are gathered and recorded the information is used to determine a selling price and/or to identify possible investment opportunities. Although the principal aim or function of cost accounting is to help the business administration with their decision making and business planning process, the cost accounting data
Total cost is all of the expenses incurred in the production of a product, to include fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs, are expenses that are constant and do not change from month to month regardless of the amount of products sold. For instance, the rent of the factory is considered a fixed cost, for the reason that, the rent must be paid whether products are produced and sold or not. Variable costs,