Evaluation of Budget Process for Long Term Care and Rehab Department (Coursework Sample)

Evaluation of Budget Process for Long Term Care and Rehab department Name
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Introduction
Health care in nursing has emerged as one of the lucrative business areas where investors want to put their money. This can partly be associated with the fact that health care is a fundamental need for the survival of every person with most countries all over the world striving to make health care accessible to all people (Porter & Teisberg, 2004). All the health care institutions must have a budget that indicates the resources that the institution uses to offer its services. As such each hospital should have a manager who is charged with the responsibility of directing the preparation and implementation of the budget (Giniat, 2011). This paper explores the overall budget process of a federal hospital giving specific focus on the long term care and rehab unit and present the findings.
Purpose statement
This paper aims at evaluating the budget preparation and monitoring process of a long term care and rehab unit, department in a busy federal hospital by the departmental manager.
The Long Term Care and Rehab unit Budget process
The budgeting period of the hospital and its entire departments takes 12 months. The financial year starts from 1 October to 30 September of every year. The budgeting process is inclusive and the budgeting of the three critical budget vote heads that is capital, operational and labor are done at the same time. The budget preparation team in the department is expected to hand over the budget to the team tasked with the duty of reviewing the budget before it is handed over to the team that approves the budget. After the budget is reviewed and corrected where applicable, the budget is submitted to the director who approves it.
The process of budget development
The departmental budget development team is composed of the departmental manager, unit heads and the procurement officer responsible for receiving and issuing the departmental items. The unit heads provides a budget for their specific units, the procurement officer provides price quotations and records of the available inventory while the manager coordinate the process of developing a single budget for the department. The manager further undertakes the labor budget that involves determining the number of employees, their hourly rate and estimates of overtime expenses. Further, the operational budget considering the previous financial year budget sets the inflationary rate with the assistance of the senior procurement officer for items that are frequently required by the department.
Departmental manager accountability in monitoring the budget
The departmental manager is expected to use the budget as a tool for evaluating whether the actual incomes and expenses comply with the budget estimates (Stilley, Inman, & Wakefield, 2010). Basically the manager receives the approved budget from the director and monitors any deviation within the financial period. The departmental manager should control any negative deviation where possible. The deviations are reported in the monthly meetings and possible correction measures suggested. The manager is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the budget is implemented effectively. The manager uses the Acustaff/scheduling system in making sure that the department has the staff needed to run safely and identify when more staffs should be recruited. Where additional costs such as overtime costs are necessary, the departmental manager must first make a written request to the director justifying the economic significance of the extra cost to the hospital profitability. With regard to the budget, technological control techniques, the VA is looking forward to implement a number of them with an inventory system for supplies for patients on the unit set to start the operation soon.
Type of budgeting used for the department
The manager explained that the departments adopt a flexible budgeting system because of the emerging nature of the labor force required. The manager noted that the department requires hiring OT frequently and the department may require recruiting external professional laborers. However, the manager is expected to give detailed information justifying the reason for such hiring with. The information must contain the number of laborers hired, the number of hours engaged and the labor per hour cost.
Two key areas that are in need of improvement
The Long Term Care and Rehab unit department manager presented two core areas that act as a challenge in the implementation and monitoring of the budget. First the manager expressed concerns on the delay of the director to approve the recruitment of full time staffs after job vacancy arise due resignation or firing of employees. Second the delay in the allocation and release of budgeted resources also proves to be a challenge for the manager. However, the biggest frustration for the department manager has been having job vacancies that are not filled yet the department is expected to provide optimal service care as if fully equipped with the staff. The manager is expected to be creative in using resources available to help deliver great and cost effective care.
How to improve these areas
Inadequate labor supply can be solved through conducting a thorough interview during the recruitment process to ensure that only suitable and serious candidates are recruited to avoid unnecessary resignations and firing of staffs. In addition...