Uma investigação do uso da contabilidade de custos em instituições hospitalares de Teresina (PI)

Abstract

Although the hospital has, among its characteristics, the commitment with the society’s health, such fact does not make it lose its business entity character. In order to remain in the competitive market, health organizations need a well-elaborated costs system that makes them know their reality and provides conditions for negotiation with their customers, giving them relevant information for the decision making process. The emphasis on the quality and on the administration of costs has become one of the main tools to face the new challenges that appear. The objective of this work is to identify the main cost methods used in the hospitals of Teresina (PI), as well as to investigate the experiences of such entities with the cost system used in the administration process, so that it may be observed whether the costs information solve the main difficulties faced by the administration. The research is of the exploratory type, it uses the multi-cases study in private and philanthropic hospitals as a method. Through questionnaire and interviews application, it was possible to verify that the researched hospitals operate with costs counting systems based on the cost by absorption, however in a precarious way. In all of the hospitals distortions take place in the costing of the services rendered due to the sharing of indirect costs. The use of the ABC is inexistent, what is not justified due to the complexity and diversity of services that are now offered by hospitals. It can be concluded that, despite having been considered as unsatisfactory by the managers of the researched institutions themselves, the hospitals of Teresina make use of information generated by the accounting of costs in order to make decisions.