83 COST MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF MENTAL HOSPITAL BASED ON ACTIVITY BASED COSTING
Authors: Liu Dazhi 
Published: February 2025

Abstract

Background
Cost control is a key link in improving the quality and efficiency of operation services in psychiatric hospitals. Traditional cost calculation methods often fail to accurately reflect the true costs of various service projects and patients, resulting in unreasonable resource allocation and affecting treatment efficiency and patient satisfaction. As a cost management tool, activity-based costing divides indirect and direct expenses into activities, products or production processes based on specific criteria, providing more accurate cost information and strong support for management decision-making. The management environment of psychiatric hospitals is relatively complex, and there are many types of daily cost items. Strengthening cost control plays an important role in improving medical and health services and patient treatment efficiency. Therefore, the study proposes using activity-based costing to achieve cost management and control in psychiatric hospitals.

Methods
The study selected a psychiatric hospital as the research object. Firstly, through questionnaire surveys and interviews, data on the operational processes, resource consumption, and costs of various departments in the hospital were collected. Subsequently, the activity-based costing method was applied to break down hospital costs into direct and indirect costs. These costs were traced back to specific service projects and patients based on operational drivers, identifying key points and optimization spaces for cost control, and proposing targeted cost control measures.

Results
In Table 1, after implementing the activity-based costing method, the cost structure of psychiatric hospitals has been significantly optimized, and the average treatment cost for psychiatric patients has decreased by about 10%. The treatment cycle of patients is shortened, and the treatment effectiveness and satisfaction are improved to varying degrees. Specifically, the activity-based costing method has made the allocation of medical resources more rational, shortened the treatment cycle for patients, and achieved a treatment effectiveness rate of 90.22% after application. Before the application of activity-based costing, the average treatment cost only reached 46.23%, and patient satisfaction was below 70%.

Discussion
Psychiatric hospitals have weak awareness of cost accounting and control, and often use traditional cost calculation methods, which can easily lead to inaccurate budget support and affect the improvement of hospital management level. The study proposes the use of activity-based costing to achieve cost management and control. This method emphasizes the optimization and improvement of the workflow, which can help psychiatric hospitals analyze and evaluate the workflow and take relevant measures to optimize it, thereby reducing costs and improving hospital operational efficiency. And this method can promote transparency in hospital internal management, integrate cost resources, and improve the efficiency of cost monitoring and decision support. In the future, it is necessary to further explore the optimal dosage, treatment cycle, and combined application with other intervention measures of clozapine in order to achieve better therapeutic effects.