This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 20 Feb 2008, by ken meece.
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20 Feb 08
ken meeceHow much does it cost for chaplain services?
Fiscal approach actually raises department’s standing-
“We don’t want to tell you what to do. We want you to tell us what you do.”
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We have a comprehensive list of spiritual care services to share with administrators whose understanding of our ministry sometimes seemed limited to praying with patients or saving souls.
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For a period of six months we would have to track the number of minutes it took to complete each patient visit and then divide our budget by those numbers.
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And then we learned that our budget would be managed by our expense per unit of service (UOS).We would be expected to meet or beat that expense on a monthly basis. Finally, there was this great incentive; we could add staff to the department if we were able to demonstrate that in doing so we would not raise our expense per UOS.
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We eventually dropped the term “visit” and replaced it with a more accurate descriptor, “service type.” The result was a catalogue of 28 Direct Service Types
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The 14 Indirect Service Types track internal departmental activities.
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When a patient or family encounter includes several services, they are recorded separately.
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we found that there is a verifiable average time for every service type.
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To assign a relative resource unit (RRU) to each service type
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the method for calculating an expense per unit of service (UOS) using a one-month hypothetical budget
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The result is the cost for each service provided
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If we chaplains were in business for ourselves, the cost for every spiritual care service would have to be calculated in a similar fashion. If not, we would not be in business very long.
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We have learned that our services are relatively inexpensive compared to those of other departments.We have learned to value our work. We have learned that increased productivity on our part reduces the cost of spiritual care services to patients.
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Our list of services has greatly assisted in explaining the exact nature and breadth of our ministry to our administration. And, wonder of wonders, we chaplains -- not known for our love of budgets or the bottom line -- can give an exact accounting of the cost for each of our spiritual care interventions.
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And it can tell us what we have accomplished with the staff we have, and what additional staff it would take to address what always remains to be done.
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the expense per unit of service and the CARE Program provide each chaplain with a daily report of productivity
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