joanna menda (asker) Nov 10, 2021:

Hi everyone, thanks for all your help with this.
The author confirmed that he meant this to be read as a subtraction. I therefore translated as "net income" which was confirmed by the editor.

Lisa Rosengard Nov 7, 2021:

Is it definitely about the economic costs of a short stay in hospital? There's a PDF file on analytical accounting of a hospital case study and the pricing of activities.
https://sites.google.com/a/jt.books-now.com/en398/9782859529...
(It's impossible to find more without any more background info.)

Daryo Nov 5, 2021:

In this text "la balance recettes/dépenses" on its own simply means calculating what's left of the income after expenses have been paid - an amount of money, preferably with a + sign.

"en fonction de la durée d'hospitalisation" means that this calculation has been done repeatedly for patients staying 1, 2, 3 ... days in the hospital.

joanna menda (asker) Sep 16, 2021:

Thanks Francois.

Francois Boye Sep 16, 2021:

@ JOanna

I stick to the text you submitted

Balance may mean profit in accounting if the balance in question is the one of an account in the black. But no account was specified in the text you submitted.

joanna menda (asker) Sep 16, 2021:

@ Francois Boye. Thanks for the input but the author has confirmed that this is not an alignment but a substraction "balance/bilan des recettes moins les dépenses". Would that then be Gross profit or net income?

Francois Boye Sep 16, 2021:

Bilan is the French for balance sheet in accounting. In this case, the word 'balance' means an alignment of expenses with income over a period of time (length of stay in hospital).

Lisa Rosengard Sep 15, 2021:

Here's a suggestion: "le bilan recette moins dépenses en fonction de la durée en moyenne par patient." - "the balance sheet of income minus expenses according to the average duration time per patient". Could the income be the money received (les recettes) minus the expenses or the hospital fees, if any money is to be returned from an insurance policy?

joanna menda (asker) Sep 15, 2021:

Hi, a new update from the author. This is a substraction "recettes moins dépenses".

joanna menda (asker) Sep 13, 2021:

It is also calculated in Euros.

joanna menda (asker) Sep 13, 2021:

I asked the author for more information and he replied "c'est le bilan entre les recettes et les dépenses"

Lisa Rosengard Sep 11, 2021:

There was a source text sentence posted on Sept 5th: "Le taux d'ambulation de leur série a été comparé au taux national et la balance recette / dépense en fonciton de la durée d'hospitalisation a été calculée." I suggest: "The outpatient fees in their range of fees or tariffs for out-patients was compared with national fees or price ranges while the balance was calculated from incomes - outgoings or expenses depending on (or based on) the length of time in hospital."

joanna menda (asker) Sep 10, 2021:

Hi everyone, Thanks for all your input. I will ask the author today for more insight in what he actually means by this and let you know.

Daryo Sep 10, 2021:

Really? And "as a function of" (your answer) just screams out "non-native speaker" in this particular context.

As far as I can see, this comment screams "non-native" to the jargon / logic of exact sciences.

Take a look at this https://www.google.com/search?q="as a function of"

"as a function of" - EXACTLY that wording - found in about 214,000,000 texts - (if you read just few of them, you'll find they are all technical / scientific papers)

Ever heard of "patriotism being the last .... "? I'm digressing, no connections whatsoever ...

Also, the fact that in some OTHER texts they looked at ratios/proportions can NOT magically change the meaning of what is "la balance recettes/dépenses" in this text. You really like "translating by statistics"?

Instead of looking at supposedly "same" studies on the Web, it would be far more useful to know how this "balance recettes/dépenses en fonction de la durée d'hospitalisation" has been actually presented in the text that is actually relevant - the one to be translated. But that would be a too esoteric method?

SafeTex Sep 9, 2021:

@ Daryo Balances are rarely used to present such data as large numbers are hard to digest for readers. See articles on this subject of costs/income and hospitalization duration and you will read passages like

"We also excluded 16 hospitals that had data anomalies, such as having a charge-to-cost ratio lower than 0.2 or higher than 15.0 or an expense-to-revenue ratio lower than 0.5 or higher than 3.0."

"Variations" (your answer) is used for a single item like "colour variation" but we don't use it for comparisons of two things. we use "ratio", "relationship", "differences" etc. in such cases

And "as a function of" (your answer) just screams out "non-native speaker" in this particular context.

Your English may be better than my French but I have the humility to know that I cannot pass myself of as a native speaker of French and so I don't even try.

Daryo Sep 9, 2021:

the net result between income/expenditure ... [for each parient, or for the average patient] depending on the number of days of hospitalisation

as suggested by Nikki Scott-Despaigne

is the intended meaning / the right interpretation.

In plain speak, what they are trying to figure out is:

how many days of keeping a patient in the hospital is too short or too long - costs more than it brings in revenues.

That's the logic of healthcare as a business: keep the patient as long as you can invoice more that it costs to keep it.

It is N_O_T about the "annual balance" of all incomes and expenditures - anything to do do with THAT kind of "income/expenditure balance" is a big fat red herring.

SafeTex Sep 7, 2021:

@ Nikki Of course. This too could well be possible. I think it all depends on how the info is portrayed plus perhaps a personal linguistic preference.

Nikki Scott-Despaigne Sep 7, 2021:

- the difference between the income/expenditure of the patient's stay in hospital
- the net result between income/expenditure of ...

Lisa Rosengard Sep 6, 2021:

If it's about the cost of health care in hospital then it could be the balance of account from the patient's admission in to the hospital to the patient's discharge from the hospital.

joanna menda (asker) Sep 5, 2021:

@Adrian, this is a medical economic study of outpatient vs. inpatient surgical management. The whole sentence "le taux d'ambulatoire de notre série a été comparé au taux national et la balance recettes/dépenses en fonction de la durée d'hospitalisation a été calculée." I found "statement of revenue and expense" and "income statement" but not sure if these are correct. I read somewhere that accounting terms were different in the US and UK...

Adrian MM. Sep 5, 2021:

more context: hospital or patient, ratio or amount Some of us may need more context: is this from the angle of the 1. hospital, so a balancing statement of a/c 2. the patient, so a balancing amount payable or receivable after fees paid on account 3. the calculation produces a percentage ratio % rather than 4. a minus balancing charge or a plus allowance.