Unit costing in healthcare: Case of a medical center

Healthcare services are complex and dynamic services. Healthcare is one of the prominent determinants of health status. Due to its importance for the public, healthcare services are under strict legal regulations regardless of the ownership. Public and private all healthcare businesses need to keep up with legal regulations to be able to sustain their activities. Whether profit-oriented or not, all healthcare businesses aim to maintain their existence and provide quality service. However, resources are scares. Therefore, there is a need for effective cost management. In this direction, the aim of the study is to make an application in a medical center to show how unit costs can be calculated in health enterprises. The study is a unit costing study. Within the scope of the study, the actual costs of a medical center were obtained. it has been determined that more than 50% of the total costs of the units are composed of labor costs, and the share of general production expenses is nearly 20%. The highest unit cost belongs to emergency department, and the lowest unit cost was in thedietetics department. Making cost analyzes can provide important information for medical centers to evaluate their capacity. Medical centers can make unit-based profitability analyzes by comparing the payments they receive within the scope of SUT (payment regulations of social security institution) with their unit costs, thus having the opportunity to evaluate their position in the market.