COST VARIANCE CONCEPTS
THIS PAPER IS ABOUT COST VARIANCE CONCEPTS.
QUESTION:
How could you use the cost variance concepts as described in this Module at your organization, or an organization of which you are familiar?

SAMPLE ANSWER BELOW (DO NOT COPY)

Utilizing the 3 way cost variance analysis would be helpful for explaining why my nursing staff has so much overtime each month. The price variance would be calculated as (cost per hour of OT – amount budgeted for OT per month) x total amount of OT for month

For the month of September this would be calculated as ($51.51 per hour of OT – $0.19 budgeted per hour of OT) x 24.28 total OT hours in September = $1,246.05 monthly variance

The efficiency variance would be calculated as (actual # of WRVU’s – budgeted # of WRVU’s) x amount budgeted per hour of OT.

For the month of September this would be calculated as (2278.38 WRVU’s – 670 WRVU’s) x $0.19 budgeted per hour of OT = $305.59

I was told that my nursing staff should not have any OT. I assume that is why my director only allotted $0.19/hr. of OT. However it’s difficult to not have OT in a clinical setting where patient care is supposed to be the top priority. There are many occasions where my surgeons are stuck in the OR yet they have a full schedule of patients in clinic. The surgeons don’t anticipate having to be in the OR for several hours more than what is normally required for a specific procedure however it happens at least once per week. We treat a lot of emergent cases that go to the OR straight from the ED. Therefore the physician arrives 2 hours late for clinic and the nursing staff has to stay until the last patient is checked out for the day.