• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.123-137
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• 2010

The main purpose of this article is for deriving functions related to the prediction of the closure of the hospitals, and finding out how the discriminant functions affect the closure of the hospitals. Empirical data were collected from 3 years financial statements of 41 private hospitals closed down from 2000 till 2006 and 62 private hospitals in business till now. As a result, the functions related to the prediction of the closure of the private hospital are 4 indices: Return on Assets, Operating Margin, Normal Profit Total Assets, Interest expenses to Total borrowings and bonds payable. From these discriminant functions predicting the closure, I found that the profitability indices - Return on Assets, Operating Margin, Normal Profit Total Assets - are the significant affecting factors. The discriminant functions predicting the closure of the group of the hospitals, 3 years before the closure were Normal Profit to Gross Revenues, Total borrowings and bonds payable to total assets, Total Assets Turnover, Total borrowings and bonds payable to Revenues, Interest expenses to Total borrowings and bonds payable and among them Normal Profit to Gross Revenues, Total borrowings and bonds payable to total assets, Total Assets Turnover, Total borrowings and bonds payable to Revenues are the significant affecting factors. However 2 years before the closure, the discriminant functions predicting the closure of the hospital were Interest expenses to Total borrowings and bonds payable and it was the significant affecting factor. And, one year before the closure, the discriminant functions predicting the closure were Total Assets Turnover, Fixed Assets Turnover, Growth Rate of Total Assets, Growth Rate of Revenues, Interest expenses to Revenues, Interest expenses to Total borrowings and bonds payable. Among them, Total Assets Turnover, Growth Rate of Revenues, Interest expenses to Revenues were the significant affecting factors.