Exam 10: Financial Management

Choose the best definition of a budget:

An understanding of healthcare economics and healthcare public policy as it applies to the delivery of patient care includes reimbursement, Medicare, Medicaid, managed care, third party providers, challenges to the current healthcare policies and key legislative initiatives at local, state and national level. Development methodologies the nurse manager must have a basic understanding of include:

Accounting skills are useful to nurse managers in carrying the day-to-day activities of their respective departments. Furthermore, nurse managers must have a working knowledge of the basic reporting formats common to the acute care setting which directly impacts their charge. Choose the correct reporting format which corresponds to the appropriate activity.One of the most important financial documents of any nursing department is the balance sheet. The balance sheet gives you a detailed picture of your department's financial position at a given point in time. The best definition of a nursing department balance sheet is:

Nurse managers use variance tables to:

Controlling is the process of comparing actual results projected in the budget. Two techniques for controlling budgetary performance are:

One of the most challenging aspects of a nurse manager's job is to accurately project the personnel budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Budget preparation requires knowledge of previous and future trends in care delivery, market information to predict changes in services offered, and unit productivity measures.The inclusive median salary for registered nurses is $26.00 per hour. Last year your department had a working budget of 98,892 total staff hours. Assume that the budgeted nursing care hours and pay rate is the basis used in the following questions.The hospital is attempting to reduce length of stay, so patient days are expected to decrease by 2%. Projected budget hours will be 98% of previous budget hours. The new total working budget hours will be:

Budgeting provides a foundation for:

Continued variances to budgets that are not supported by increased revenues will:

The best definition of a budget variance is:

An important step in controlling expenditures and ultimately profit is by creating a budget. With ever narrowing profit margins, each department needs to keep careful track of expenses. Some things included in a departmental budget are salaries, office expenses, utilities, repairs, and maintenance. The following questions relate to creating your departmental budget, sometimes called an organizational budget.Departmental budgets are usually broken down with two main but equally important categories. They are:

One of the more difficult tasks nurse managers face is estimating the levels of floor staff, patient care levels, supplies and department overhead. Expense forecasting can be a challenge to any business, but the expense forecasting the business of healthcare can be daunting. In determining department staffing requirements, the nurse manager should include:

What is the definition of inpatient discharges?

A discrepancy in a line-item comparison of a monthly financial statement is called:

The advantage of an incremental budget is:

Based on the new total average monthly projected working hours for the 12 month period and the new wage structure for registered nurses, your new budget in annual nursing hours will cost:

Nurse managers use variance graphs to:

The expense budget represents:

CMS guidelines for inpatient postanesthesia evaluation reimbursement states:

Nurse managers should be aware of their role in engaging staff nurses in the financial management aspect of their units. Studies indicate the most effective way a nurse manager can keep staff nurses engaged is to:

What is a cost- benefit analysis?