An essential reference book every health care provider organization or accounting consultancy must have! Designed to meet the specific needs of financial professionals responsible for ensuring the administration and documentation of their health care organization's capital investments. Estimated Useful Lives provides clear and concise estimates of the useful life span of hundreds of capital items commonly acquired for the delivery of health care services. Data was compiled from a consensus of leading appraisal companies, hospital administrators, hospital construction firms, suppliers, and experts in capital accounting.This 2004 edition answers frequently asked questions about the proper use of estimated lives information and contains data tables for nine primary categories of capital investments: buildings, building components, fixed equipment, building services equipment, administrative departments, nursing departments, diagnostic equipment, treatment equipment, and support departments. The Medicare program recognizes the estimated useful lives as assigned in this book.

This updated edition defines the productive period of time typical health care capital assets have before they become obsolete. The introduction includes an overview of the importance of the capital planning process and helpful tips on managing capital projects once they are under way. This edition contains information on hundreds of items and includes new capital assets that reflect recent technological developments. It provides asset life span estimates in reference tables for the major equipment and capital asset investments found in hospitals and physician group practices. This book can save any health care organization immeasurable time and reduce the risk of reimbursement questions arising from the assigned life of a capital asset.

Twenty years ago, a man added what he thought was a harmless ingredient to a bottle of his wife's perfume. Thinking the fragrance ruined, the man's wife put it away and forgot about it. Years later, she rediscovers the perfume and thinking Susan, her college attending daughter would enjoy using it, sends it to her. Her daughter does use it and along with others is amazed at the unexpected and unique results. The mysterious scent promotes an emotional reaction in men unlike any anticipated or envisioned. Professor Gertrude Lehman, an Internationally renowned chemist at Susan's college, unravels the chemical formula that makes the perfume irresistible. As word spreads, advertisers set out to obtain the "magic" perfume, but Professor Lehman keeps the formula closely guarded. Meanwhile, Lydia Cornell, a beautiful advertising executive, wants control of the perfume certain it will be her key to power and financial success. Driven by their ambitions and conflicting agendas, Lehman and Cornell clash, and their struggle for control of the perfume's secret ingredient and power endangers those they know and love.

"[This book is] the most authoritative assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of recent trends toward the commercialization of health care," says Robert Pear of The New York Times. This major study by the Institute of Medicine examines virtually all aspects of for-profit health care in the United States, including the quality and availability of health care, the cost of medical care, access to financial capital, implications for education and research, and the fiduciary role of the physician. In addition to the report, the book contains 15 papers by experts in the field of for-profit health care covering a broad range of topicsâ€"from trends in the growth of major investor-owned hospital companies to the ethical issues in for-profit health care. "The report makes a lasting contribution to the health policy literature." â€"Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.