HealthSouth Corporation claims to be “. . . the nation’s largest owner and operator of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals in terms of revenues, number of hospitals, and patients treated and discharged.” As of December 31, 2011, the company derived 92 percent of its revenues from inpatient services. During 2011 it treated and discharged 118,354 patients, and the average length of a patient’s stay was 13.5 days. If one patient occupying one bed for one day represents a “patient-day,” then HealthSouth produced 1,597,779 patient-days of output during 2011 (118,354 ÷ 13.5 = 1,597,779). During this period, HealthSouth incurred depreciation costs of $52,500,000. For the purpose of this problem, assume that all of this depreciation related to the property, plant, and equipment of inpatient hospitals.

Required
a. Indicate whether the depreciation cost is a:
(1) Product (i.e., patient) cost or a general, selling, and administrative cost.
(2) Fixed or variable cost relative to the volume of production.
(3) Direct or indirect cost if the cost object is the cost of patient services provided in 2011.
b. Assume that HealthSouth incurred depreciation of $4,375,000 during each month of the 2011 fiscal year, but that it produced 140,000 patient-days of service during February and 120,000 patient-days of service during March. Based on monthly costs and service levels, what was the average amount of depreciation cost per patient-day of service provided during each of these two months, assuming each patient-day of service was charged the same amount of depreciation?
c. If HealthSouth expected to produce 1,650,000 patient-days of service during 2011 and estimated its annual depreciation costs to be $53,000,000, what would have been its predetermined overhead charge per patient-day of service for depreciation? Explain the advantage of using this amount to determine the cost of providing one patient-day of service in February and March versus the amounts you computed in Requirement b.
d. If HealthSouth’s management had estimated the profit per patient-day of service based on its budgeted production of 1,650,000 units, would you expect its actual profit per patient-day of service to be higher or lower than expected? Explain.