Expense per bed
What is expense per bed?
Expense per bed is a financial metric that provides the average cost to a hospital for treating a single inpatient who utilizes a staffed bed. This differs from expense per treatment, as one patient may have multiple treatments, and the expense per bed considers that by tallying up all costs associated with caring for a single patient.
Many factors can cause variances in the expense per bed, including the department analyzed, whether it is a short-term or long-term patient, and the patient’s overall health when they arrived.
How can hospitals leverage expense per bed?
Expense per bed can provide key information about the average cost of treating a patient, which, ultimately, treatment revenue should exceed to ensure that there is not a deficit. When the expense per bed rises, hospitals can look at where to cut costs to increase their net revenue.
Hospitals can also break down the expense per bed further to see where each expense comes from—for instance, the administration or clinical processes.
Analyzing the expense per bed for each department can offer insight into the departments that incur the greatest expenses and would benefit the most from fine-tuning expenses and implementing practices that cut costs.
Ultimately, determining where expenses come from and executing practices to reduce these expenses leads to greater revenues.