Original Research
The use of activity-based costing in South African private health care industry
Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences | Vol 8, No 2 | a106 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/jef.v8i2.106
| © 2019 Gideon Botha, Frans Vermaak
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 21 December 2017 | Published: 30 July 2015
Submitted: 21 December 2017 | Published: 30 July 2015
About the author(s)
Gideon Botha, Department of Financial Management, University of Pretoria, South AfricaFrans Vermaak, Department of Financial Management, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Full Text:
PDF (145KB)Abstract
The private health care industry is facing uncertainty and change as a result of the market inquiry being undertaken by the Competition Commission into the private health care industry, the introduction of the National Health Insurance and the possibility of fee regulation. This study seeks to determine the extent to which activity-based costing is used within the operations of private health care facilities in South Africa. A structured online questionnaire was used to collect the primary data; it was completed by 32 private health care facilities and three hospital groups. This study found that the level of activity-based costing adoption at a health care facility level increased from 1.2% in 1994 to 31% in 2013. The increase in the level of activity-based costing adoption indicates that the private health care facilities are willing to adopt and use innovative management tools and techniques to face their current challenges.
Keywords
activity-based costing; National Health Insurance; private health care industry; South Africa; competition commission
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