With ever decreasing agency budgets, tracking the costs of plans and their associated activities has become an essential part of Outcome Management. Tracking cost not only allows a case worker to easily identify spiralling costs and to take appropriate action but it also allows comparisons to be made between the cost of a service provided by one provider over another. For example, a case worker may identify that outcomes are the same regardless of whether a higher cost provider is used or not.
To support the tracking of cost, Outcome Management provides a cost statement which displays all estimated and actual costs to date involved in the delivery of actions and services on a plan.
The estimated cost of an action is derived based on the estimated cost specified by a case worker (if any) at the time of creation or it is derived from a fixed cost specified for the action in action administration. The estimated cost of a service is derived based on the estimated cost calculated on creation of the service. For more information on how this cost is calculated see the Cúram Integrated Case Management Guide.
The actual cost of an action is derived from the actual cost specified by a case worker when completing an action, if any, or it is derived based on the fixed cost configured for the action in action administration. The actual cost of a service is derived based on payments made to a provider as outlined in the Cúram Integrated Case Management Guide. Actions which have no associated cost are not displayed in the cost statement.
The progress of each action and service is also displayed. The status of the action or service will highlight to the case worker that the actual cost shown may not be the final cost of the activity. The total estimated cost and total actual cost is also displayed.