Reporting Practices and Ethics



Reporting Practices and Ethics

Introduction

Healthcare finance has been streamlined with financial reporting practices and ethical standards. These ethical standards regulate the conduct of healthcare, in perspective of their customers and in fairness to the skill levels of the healthcare professionals. These ethical standards are formulated by different standard-setting bodies such as the Financial Accountings Standards Board (FASB) and other professional accounting and finance organizations. The essential fundamentals that lead to adoption of such defined ethical standards (FASB, IFRS or IASB) aim to pursue competence, objectivity and confidentiality in financial reporting practices. It is hence mandated for healthcare finance professionals to be well versed with accounting principles and related ethical standards to manage and grow their businesses as well as attain competence, objectivity and confidentiality in their respective healthcare organizations.

The aim of the article is to address financial management practices of healthcare organizations in the USA. The paper would discuss four elements of financial management and then carry on to list different acceptable financial standards practiced in US based healthcare organizations. The next section would highlight pros and cons regarding ethical standards and concurrent financial reporting practices. Further links with regards to ethical practices and its importance in gaining competitive advantages in different industries would be assessed. This analysis would be based on research work of scholars concerned with the field of financial management.

Discussion

Four Elements of Financial Management

Efficient financial management of public organizations is dictated by a theory which proposes four essential elements. These elements are sequential and must be followed accordingly. These elements are:

Aggregate Fiscal Management;

Operational Management;

Fiduciary Risk Management, and;

Governance (Parry, 2010).

Public financial management should reflect the aforementioned dimensions. This system would provide a guideline for reporting appropriate budgets, plans, financial statements and other performance based standards (Parry, 2010).

Acceptable Financial Ethical Standards

Some of the acceptable financial ethical ...