Budget And Budgeting The Budget

Budget Management Analysis

Heidi Loebig

HCS/571

June 29, 2015

Debrah Vaughn

Budget Management Analysis

“A budget is a plan” (Finkler, Kovner, & Jones, 2007, p. 232). The budgeting process consists of two components forecasting the budget and maintaining the budget (Clark, 2005). In the budgeting process, the manager 's responsibilities include accountability, analyzing variances and managing expenses. When the actual budget differs from the forecasted budget, a variance has occurred and needs to be examined further. Budgets can be used in the both the internal and external benchmarking process to see how the organization is performing compared to similar organizations.

Strategies to Manage Forecasted Budget

A key role of the nurse manager

307). Instead, the budget can be used to help the organization constantly improve, by examining what is doing well and identifying areas for improvement. Three common types of benchmarking are competitive, collaborative, and cooperative. The goal of competitive benchmarking is to see what competitors are doing well and how to incorporate it into practice. Cooperative benchmarking goes evaluates other industries to identify best practices then incorporating those into the healthcare industry. Collaborative benchmarking looks at the pooled data for the industry to determine how the organization ranks within the

Managers employ a variety of controls to maintain forecasted budgets. When actual budget differs from the forecasted budget, a variance occurs. Variance analysis is done for three reasons, but for variance analysis to effective, the manager must identify and understand the cause of the variance. Benchmarking techniques can be employed to help achieve greater accuracy in budget forecasts and increased patient satisfaction.

References

Borglum, K. (2008). Better medicine through benchmarking. How applying standards to your practice can improve the care you give. Medical Economics, 85(16), 39-43. Ebsco.

Clark, J. J. (2005). Improving hospital budgeting and accountability a best practice approach. Healthcare Financial Management: Journal of the Healthcare Financial

Management Association, 59(7), 78-83. Ebsco.

Finkler, S.A., Kovner, C.T., & Jones, C.B. (2007) Financial management for nurse managers and executives (3rd ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders Elsevier.

Horblyuk, R., Kaneta, K., McMillen, G. L., Mullins, C., O 'Brien, T. M., & Roy, A. (2012). Out of control little-used clinical assets are draining healthcare budgets. Healthcare Financial

Management: Journal of The Healthcare Financial Management Association, 66(7), 64-

68.