Manager of Cost Accounting

The Manager, Cost Accounting is responsible for overseeing the organization's healthcare cost accounting function and maintaining the integrity of the cost accounting model used to support financial, strategic, and regulatory decision-making. This role leads the monthly costing processes, develops and maintains cost allocation methodologies, and ensures the accurate assignment of costs across hospitals, departments, service lines, physicians, and patient populations.

The Manager, Cost Accounting serves as the organization's subject matter expert for healthcare cost accounting and is responsible for the governance, maintenance, and continuous improvement of the health system's cost accounting methodologies and systems. Reporting to the Director of Decision Support, this role collaborates closely with Financial Planning & Analysis, Revenue Cycle, Supply Chain, Operations, and Information Systems to ensure cost data accurately reflects resource utilization and organizational operations.

A key responsibility of this role is partnering with operational and clinical leaders to conduct and maintain departmental time studies and workload assessments that support RVU weighting methodologies and cost allocation models.

• Oversee the integrity, maintenance, and continuous improvement of the organization's healthcare cost accounting model.
• Manage the monthly and quarterly costing processes, including data validation, reconciliations, cost assignments, and balancing procedures.
• Develop, maintain, and document methodologies that appropriately assign direct and indirect costs across departments, patient services, physicians, procedures, and service lines.
• Establish and maintain cost allocation methodologies that reflect resource utilization and operational workflows.
• Ensure consistency with organizational accounting standards, regulatory requirements, and healthcare industry best practices.
• Lead periodic reviews and refinement of costing methodologies to reflect organizational, operational, and reimbursement changes.
• Maintain documentation of cost accounting assumptions, methodologies, controls, and governance processes.

• Serve as the organizational leader for Relative Value Unit (RVU) and workload-based costing methodologies.
• Partner with clinical, operational, and departmental leaders to conduct periodic time studies and workload assessments.
• Evaluate staffing models, workflow changes, and operational practices to ensure appropriate assignment of labor and indirect costs.
• Develop and maintain departmental RVU weighting methodologies used within the cost accounting system.
• Review and validate workload statistics, labor drivers, and allocation bases to ensure accurate costing outputs.
• Recommend methodology enhancements to improve the accuracy and credibility of cost information across the organization.

• Serve as the primary business owner and subject matter expert for healthcare cost accounting systems and associated data structures.
• Ensure the integrity and accuracy of financial, clinical, operational, payroll, supply chain, and billing data utilized in cost accounting processes.
• Collaborate with Information Systems, Revenue Cycle, Supply Chain, and Finance teams to develop, test, and implement new data feeds and system enhancements.
• Lead quality assurance reviews and data validation processes to ensure accuracy of costing results and allocation methodologies.
• Oversee periodic audits of cost accounting data, mappings, statistics, and allocation drivers.
• Maintain system tables, departmental mappings, cost-center relationships, charge master assignments,…