Costing in hospital services: economists and accountant's approaches

The scarcity of resources and growing demand for health care, as well as moral, socioeconomic and political imperatives for efficient use of resources, make cost information and adoption of an accurate methodology an integral part of the modern management.

At first, a research protocol including literature review strategies, inclusion and exclusion criteria and data gathering methods, was designed. Afterwards, using an electronic search of several databases, some relevant studies were identified.

In the costing literature the economic and accounting approaches are distinguishable. Two methods of marginal and average unit cost analyses are attributable to these approaches. Considering the type of the problem to be decided about and cost targets, costing methods can be different. Factors such as types of cost analyses and economic evaluation, timing overview, analysis approach and advantage or disadvantage of economy of scale have a significant role in determining the costs.

Having no consensus of opinion on the most appropriate principles to use in costing process is one of the main challenges of the time. There is a trade-off between the accuracy and cost of achieving cost information... Therefore, standardization of costing methodologies and adoption of comprehensive approaches for the main issues will predispose an economical international and organizational comparability.