Boston Medical Center Essay

Total contribution needed to cover the old fixed costs + new fixed cost + profit is just the three factors added together.

5. Fixed costs can be discretionary or committed. Using your judgment based on the discussion in the case, identify which costs are likely to be discretionary. Assuming that management is able to decrease discretionary fixed costs by 10%, what would be the impact on Bridgestone’s break-even point revenues?

Patients who use peritoneal dialysis change their own cleansing solutions at home, usually about six times per day. This procedure can be done manually when active or automatically by machine when sleeping. However, the patient’s overall condition, as well as the positioning of the catheter, must be monitored regularly by nurses and technicians at the Dialysis Center (Gapenski, pg. 27-28). The Outpatient Clinic currently takes up 80 percent of the space it shares with the Dialysis Center. The recent growth in volume has created a need of 25 percent more space for the Clinic. Its large size compared to the Dialysis Center and its patients frequent use of other departments in the hospital are justifications as to why it was decided to move the Dialysis Center to another building. Big Bend Medical Center currently doesn’t have adequate space to house the Dialysis Center, so it was also decided to build a new 20,000-square-foot building. This expansion and move were went to benefit both departments and help increase patient volume. The goal of increased patient volume is expected, but the directors and other department heads did not agree with the new allocation of indirect costs. In the past, facilities costs were aggregated, so all departments were charged cost based on the average embedded cost regardless of actual age of the space occupied. Since many department heads considered this

Under the current indirect cost allocation scheme (Exhibit 1) the Dialysis Center’s Revenues and Direct Costs are as follows: total revenue is $2,700,000, direct expenses are $2,100,000, the contribution margin is $600,000, and their percent of revenues is 22.2%. Their indirect costs are as follows: facilities cost is $300,000, general overhead is $270,000, and total overhead is $570,000. This leaves the Dialysis Center with $30,000 in net profit and 1.1% in percent of revenues. Additionally, square footage is allocated at $15.00 per square foot on an aggregated basis. Lastly, their general overhead costs are set at 10% of their total revenues.

Founded in 1951 and led by Dr. James R. Fairchild, a board-certified internist, Medical Associates is a physician group practice that expanded slowly and added other specialties in 1963. It has continued to expand over the years, and began to provide specialty and sub-specialty medical and surgical care in 1972. Medical Associates has also grown into a large tax paying medical group of forty physicians and two separate location in Middleboro and the eastern edge of Jasper which opened in 1972 and 1985 respectively. The practice was originally a single specialty practice but now has several specialties and sub-specialties in addition to ambulatory surgical services due

* Relevant—No. The firm is operating at 65% capacity, so the company would not have to turn away any other work.

4. Now focus solely on the expected profitability of the proposed marketing program. How many incremental daily visits must the program generate to make it worthwhile? (In other words, how many incremental visits would it take to pay for the marketing program, irrespective of overall clinic

13. Sunglass Hut purchases a pair of Tiffany sunglasses from a wholesaler for $180 and sells it for $300. If the wholesaler increases its price by 20%, to the nearest dollar, what should Sunglass Hut charge in order to maintain the same percent margin?

Question 3: Identify all costs associated with this venture. Categorize these costs as fixed or variable.

Break-even Dollar Volume = Total Fixed Costs / Contribution Margin = $525,000 / 0.7111 = $738,282.40

Springfield Express has an opportunity to obtain a new route that would be traveled 20 times per month. The company believes it can sell seats at $ 175 on the route, but the load factor would be only 60 percent. Fixed cost would increase by $ 250,000 per month for additional personnel, additional passenger train cars, maintenance, and so on. Variable cost per passenger would remain at $ 70.

Estimates of fixed costs are reasonably straightforward and are given in the case (p.280), a total of $250,000 ($160,000+$90,000).

If Marlene Herbert were to discontinue place mats, he would miss $270,000 that will go toward Mendel paper company fixed cost. The company currently has a plant overhead that is estimated at $420,000 for the quarter. In addition to the fixed plant overhead, the plant incurs fixed selling and administrative expenses per quarter of $118,000. This draws the company to a total fixed cost of $538,000. If Marlene Herbert were to discontinue the second highest contributor to the fixed cost, he would need to increase the volume of computer paper and lower material cost to help pull the contribution margin of the lowest product up to help support the lost of a whole product line.

3. For each of the individual overhead accounts at Bridgeton, do you believe the given cost is variable, fixed, or something else? Why? (Use information or evidence from the case to support your evaluation, if possible. For most of these costs, there is no single right answer from the case information, so the goal is to come up with a reasonable estimate.)

The capitated managed care agreement with the city allows the hospital to receive $250 per month per family for taking care of the 300 city employees and their families, whether they are sick or not. Utilizing the full cost method, the hospital incurs a profit loss of $51,898,395, meaning that a rate increase of $14,166.22 is required in order to cover the full cost for the year. When applying the differential cost the hospital also incurs a profit loss of $15,119, and a rate increase of $3,949.72 is required in order to cover the differential cost for the year.