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Gaap in Healthcare

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Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in Healthcare Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or GAAP was developed from different accounting entities, one of which was the Financial Accounting Standards Board or FASB. GAAP is a group of standards for accounting with common industry language developed over many years and used by businesses to organize financial information. The main purpose for GAAP is to make a standard way for anyone to pick up a financial statement and be able to compare financials using the same set of rules. GAAP is an accounting method used in health care facilities. These are specific policies that are used when the health care institution must make important financial decisions. To understand financial statements, the importance and relevance of GAAP must be understood. These standards guide accountants in the measuring and reporting of financial events of healthcare entities such as hospitals, clinics, not-for-profit groups, and other healthcare related businesses. The information used in these financial statements must be relevant, reliable, and comparable. Some of the concepts or principles used in the preparation of financial statements by way of GAAP are discussed below.
Accrual Principle The accrual principle simply means that accounting transactions should be recorded in the period that they occur rather than when the cash flows related to them occur. In the healthcare field, all revenue earned for in-house patients should be recorded for GAAP, on the last day of the reporting period. GAAP requires that the hospital is to record revenue earned for in-house patients on the last day of the reporting period. Revenue and expense deductions are required to be accrued. What is avoided are the summaries of third-party based revenues for paid claims because this is not accounting based on accruals.
Entity principle The

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