B. Overview of VA Cost Methods

4. How can I find the budget of a particular VA medical center?

If you wish to find the expenditures of the medical care appropriation for past years, you should tabulate the Financial Management System (FMS) or the DSS Account Level Budget Center Cost Center (ALBCC) database. Tabulations are easily accessed from the VISN Support Service Center DSS reports page.

Past year expenditures

Total expenditures by station for past years can be obtained from the summary VA general ledger, the FMS system. The FMS gives total expenditures for each medical center, including the medical care appropriation, as well as other VA funds, e.g., research funds.

The best source of information by patient care department is available from DSS. Department level costs are available from ALBCC. It is also possible to find the mean cost of each outpatient clinic (characterized by three digit DSS identifier, the clinic stop), and the mean cost of days spent in each type of inpatient unit (characterized by two digit DSS treating specialty code, also known as the bedsection). This information is easily obtained from VSSC reports.

Current and Next Year's Allocations

The networks office or the fiscal office of a medical center would be able to provide anticipated expenditures (budget) at the facility level.