Book excerpt: With the growing importance of budgeting and budget analysis in today's outcome-value oriented healthcare environment, there is an ever-increasing need to provide today's healthcare students with budgeting skills they need to be successful. While most healthcare finance texts include a chapter on budgeting, this coverage is often insufficient to adequately prepare them, as future financial managers, for the demands of upper management. A great supplement to a wide range of finance, economics, and accounting courses across the health disciplines, Practical Budgeting for Health Care: A Concise Guide covers the full scope of budgeting and budget analysis–from incremental budgeting, forecasting, and flexible budgeting, to variance analysis, capital budgeting, and more–providing students with the information and skills they'll need to budget effectively. Key Features ? Includes step-by-step instructions on constructing budgets, focusing on incremental and flexible budgeting, the two mos