Health Care Management
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Chapter41.pdf
4.4 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems
1. Suppose that a chief financial officer of a healthcare organization wants to check
on the average number of days that the organization’s Accounts Receivable are past due. The organization considers a receivable “past due” if it has not been
paid within 60 days of the bill being sent to the patient. You have been asked to
test your Excel skills by taking a random sample of all of the past due accounts,
and you want to practice on the hypothetical data given in Fig. 4.5.
(a) Write the null hypothesis and the research hypothesis on your spreadsheet
(b) Use Excel to find the sample size, mean, standard deviation, and standard
error of the mean to the right of the data set. Use number format (two
decimal places) for the mean, standard deviation, and standard error of
the mean.
(c) Enter the critical t from the t-table in Appendix E onto your spreadsheet, and
label it.
(d) Use Excel to compute the t-value for these data (use two decimal places) and
label it on your spreadsheet
(e) Type the result on your spreadsheet, and then type the conclusion in plain
English on your spreadsheet
(f) Save the file as: ACCOUNTS3
2. The Department of Managed Health Care in the State of California (USA) has
adopted a number of regulations to ensure that managed care enrollees have
access to healthcare services in a timely manner. One of these regulations
requires that health care plans show that their provider networks are sufficiently
large to ensure that enrollees be offered an appointment with a primary care
provider within 10 business days of such a request. Suppose that you are an
intern for a health insurer and that you have been asked to determine whether or
not your company is in compliance with this regulation. Hypothetical data on a
random sample of patients insured with your company are presented in Fig. 4.6:
Fig. 4.5 Worksheet Data for Chap. 4: Practice
Problem #1
4.4 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems 81
(a) On your Excel spreadsheet, write the null hypothesis and the research hypothesis for these data.
(b) Use Excel to find the sample size, mean, standard deviation, and standard
error of the mean for these data (two decimal places for the mean, standard
deviation, and standard error of the mean).
(c) Use Excel to perform a one-group t-test on these data (two decimal places).
(d) On your printout, type the critical value of t given in your t-table in
Appendix E.
(e) On your spreadsheet, type the result of the t-test.
(f) On your spreadsheet, type the conclusion of your study in plain English.
(g) save the file as: DISCHARGE3
3. Suppose the Director of Laboratory Services wants to determine the average
time required to conduct a specific laboratory test. When the time and motion
study for this test was completed 6 months ago, the average time required was
32 minutes. The Director wants to know if this time estimate has changed so that
the proper cost can be applied to this test. You want to practice your data
interpretation skills on the hypothetical data which appear in Fig. 4.7.
Fig. 4.6 Worksheet Data for Chap. 4: Practice Problem #2
82 4 One-Group t-Test for the Mean
(a) Write the null hypothesis and the research hypothesis on your spreadsheet
(b) Use Excel to find the sample size, mean, standard deviation, and standard
error of the mean to the right of the data set. Use number format (two
decimal places) for the mean, standard deviation, and standard error of
the mean.
(c) Enter the critical t from the t-table in Appendix E onto your spreadsheet, and
label it.
(d) Use Excel to compute the t-value for these data (use two decimal places) and
label it on your spreadsheet
(e) Type the result on your spreadsheet, and then type the conclusion in plain
English on your spreadsheet
(f) Save the file as: TIME3
Fig. 4.7 Worksheet Data for Chap. 4: Practice problem #3
4.4 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems 83
References
Foster D, Stine R, Waterman R. Basic business statistics: a casebook. New York: Springer-Verlag;
1998.
Veney J. Statistics for health policy and administration using Microsoft Excel. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass; 2003.
Veney JE, Kros JF, Rosenthal DA. Statistics for health care professionals: working with Excel. 2 nd
ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; 2009.
Zikmund W, Babin B. Exploring marketing research. 10th ed. Mason: South-Western Cengage
Learning; 2010.
84 4 One-Group t-Test for the Mean
