Analysis of Financial Structure of Hospitals Before and After The Separation of Prescription and Drug Dispensing Policy

의약분업 전.후 병원재무구조 평가

This study is aimed at evaluating the financial structure of hospitals before and after the separation of prescription and drug dispensing policy started to be implemented in July 2000 and at making a suitable hospital managerial strategy through the verification of the factors which have effect on their profitability. This study investigated the hospitals which have passed the accredition review to be designated as a accredited training hospital each year for three years from 1999 to 2001. Those hospitals were selected from members of the Korea Hospital Association. 106 hospitals were targeted for analysis except for the hospitals whose financial statements and managerial performance were not reported faithfully. The financial indicators used in this study were stability indicators(liability to total assets, ratio of debt to fund balance, fixed ratio), liquidity indicators(current ratio, quick ratio), activity indicators(total assets turnover, fixed assets turnover), profitability indicators(net profit to total assets, net profit to net worth, operating margin), and operating expenses to patient revenues indicators(drug and supplies costs/payroll/overhead expenses). The result of this study are as follows: First, the analysis of the increase of loss-making hospitals before and after. The separation of prescription and drug dispensing policy shows that the number of loss-making hospitals increase after the separation(22.6% before the separation; 31.1% after the separation). However, there was no significant statistical difference. Second, the analysis of operating expenses to patient revenues indicators showed that the ratio of drug and supplies cost became lower in all hospitals but the ratio of payroll/overhead expenses became higher. Additionally, the factor which have the greatest effect on profitability was operating expenses to patient revenues indicators (drug and supplies costs/payroll/overhead expenses). Third, the analysis of managerial performance by four types of loss-loss, loss-profit, profit-loss and profit-profit compared the results before the separation with those after the separation revealed as follows : Reliance on liability to total assets became higher in the profit-loss type($56.2%{\rightarrow}66.4%$), lower in the loss-profit type($82.7%{\rightarrow}74.5%$). Total assets turnover became higher in the profit-profit type($1.3{\rightarrow}1.5$), but lower in the loss-profit type($0.8{\rightarrow}0.7$). Operating margin decreased to minus 5.9% from 4.3% in the profit-loss type, but increased to 7.2% from minus 7.8% in the loss-profit type. Forth, operating expenses to revenues indicators showed that the increase of payroll was the biggest in the profit-loss type($39.2%{\rightarrow}49.9%$) and that overhead cost decreased in the loss-profit type but that rather increased in other types.