Target Costing – a Remedy for Hospitals’ Ills?
Target Costing – a Remedy for Hospitals’ Ills?

Summary/Abstract: The interest in target costing in case of hospitals is associated with their difficult financial situation, the necessity of introducing organizational changes, as well as the need for strategic management of costs. In the past, cost accounting, in conventional payment systems, such as fee-for-service reimbursement and global budgets, was not of high priorityto hospitals. Its significance and role increased with the introduction of DRG-based payment system. Due to a new form of medical services contracting and financing, hospital managers started to pay more attention to cost accounting and cost management that enablet o collect, summarize, analyse and control the most relevant information regarding costs of hospital activity, especially medical services. The purpose of this paper is to present the possibility to apply target costing in hospitals (service sector). The first part of the paper describes the concept of target costing and the second one focuses on hospitals and discusses the use of target costing, while taking into account the specificity of hospital as an entity. It is mainly a theoretical (conceptual) paper, based on the literature critical review and the authors’ experience and their knowledge about hospitals.

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