Marginal Cost Study of Selected CONUS Army Medical Treatment Facilities
Abstract
This two-pronged study resulted in a methodology for determining marginal inpatient, clinic visit, and delivery costs, and the production of facility reports and specific marginal costs for eight medical treatment facilities. The methodology algorithmically describes data collection and manipulation procedures, and permits the calculation of marginal costs for 39 separate patient classes. Each patient class consists of a type of beneficiary (Active Duty, dependents of Active Duty, retirees, and dependents of retirees), the relevant hospital department (medical, surgical, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, and all other), and an appropriate service measure (patient stay, ambulatory clinic visit, and for obstetrical patients, delivery, which includes the other two measures). Individual facility reports compared marginal costs with the corresponding local CHAMPUS costs for the above patient types. Comparisons of facility-specific marginal costs with corresponding total (patient and government) CHAMPUS costs show in summary: For inpatient classes, 90.6 percent of the marginal costs were less than half of the CHAMPUS costs; for outpatient classes, 98.9 percent of the marginal costs were less than half of the CHAMPUS costs; all marginal obstetrics costs were less than half of the CHAMPUS costs.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA073562