Métodos de custeio no setor público: Um estudo sobre como as informações de custos atendem aos diversos stakeholders de um hospital universitário público

Abstract

The public health sector coexists with a constant shortage of resources combined with a growing need for investment in technology and innovation. Therefore, it is necessary for public health managers to look for ways to maximize the use of these scarce budget resources. One alternative is to implement studies on costs, in a way that the manager is able to take actions to control costs, fighting waste and planning future investments. However, in the governmental area, there are other groups in addition to the manager who have an interest in knowing the information of health sector costs. These groups are called by management theory as Stakeholders. Each stakeholder, such as doctors, patients, suppliers and society, among others may require different information of cost. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate what is the cost method that best suit the needs of different stakeholders in a public hospital. In view of that, the study uses a literature that addresses the methods of absorption costing, variable costing and activity-based costing, which are the methods most debated by the accounting literature. Thus, in order to answer the research question, this study develops a hypothetical scenario of a public university hospital, in which its stakeholders and their needs for cost information are identified. As a result of the analysis, it is observed that each of these stakeholders has a costing method, or a combination of two of these, that best suits their cost information needs.