ABSTRACT
With the advent of a society in which the number of elderly people is increasing and the number of babies a woman gives birth to in her lifetime is decreasing, how to address to the future financial broblem of the nation's health insurance schemes has come up for discussion. Against the backdrop of quantitative repletion of medical care, the government has come pu with a policy calling for the containment of medical costs. Under the circumstances, it is expected that the proceeds from medical treatment will level off in years to come. To cope with the situation, the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives for Welfare in Aichi Prefecture has planned to install a department-wise cost control system in its member hospitals with eht aim of making all staff members cost-conscious, profit-minded and futrure-oriented in every department. In this paper, the authors will present the system in outline and show the target number of patients set on the basis of the break-even point, financial analyses of departments where revenues are below the break-even point and measures to deal with deficits case by case. In addition, as a task to be tackled with, the need for the omprovement of the accuracy and the standardization of the system will be discussed.