The nurse executive of a health care organization is working with ...

[WhattoUnderstand]

The nurse executive of a health care organization is working with the chief financial officer to develop a method of charging for nursing services. Why is this a difficult undertaking?
 
  1. The historical method of recouping the cost of nursing salaries has been to bundle those costs in with ancillary services salaries.
  2. The actual cost of providing nursing services is difficult to determine.
  3. The number of patients on a given unit varies from day to day.
  4. Nurses do not like to think about charging for their services.

Question 2

Body temperature is an example of a constant.
 
  A) True
  B) False

[Anonymous]

Answer to Question 1

2
Rationale 1: Historically, the cost of nursing has been included in the total bill. Nursing services have not be charged for separately or bundled in with other salary lines.
Rationale 2: This is a primary issue. Nursing services are so pervasive throughout the patient's care that it is difficult to determine the actual cost.
Rationale 3: While it might be logical to divide the cost of nursing salaries per day by the number of patients cared for in a day, this does not work in practice.
Rationale 4: While nurses may have not thought about the cost of providing services in the past, today's environment has made this a part of each nurse's responsibility.

Answer to Question 2

B