The role of activity based costing (ABC) system in governmental hospital services in Iran

Activity based costing or (ABC) is one of the new costing methods with an increasing application throughout the world. This study uses ABC method for calculating the cost price of services in governmental hospitals in southern Iran. After finding out the present method’s weaknesses, with regard to the services offered, all hospital units were divided into three main categories including administration, diagnostic services and hospitalization. Then, by using activity analysis method, activity centers in each one of the above-mentioned parts were defined followed by costing in each activity center. The costs of Administrative activity centers were divided into diagnostic and operational based on cost driver using “concurrent equations method” to find the percent of giving and receiving services to/from other centers. After determining the costs of diagnostic and operational activity centers, based on the volume usage of activities, the cost price of the hospital services was calculated. The cost price from ABC method differed significantly with that from Tariff method. ABC method represented useful information about the volume and combination of cost of activity services, cost price of hospital services and could calculate the cost level constituent services. ABC can be used as an efficient method in health centers in developing countries which is beneficial for both managers and the policy and decision makers