台灣醫療財團法人財務資訊公開之研究

Abstract

近年來非營利組織在台灣社會扮演的角色日益吃重，在非營利組織的公共課責相關議題中，財務課責為重要面向之一，而財務報表的健全與公開透明，正是促進與落實非營利組織財務課責的核心。本研究探討二○○五年醫療法修正後，衛生署公布醫療財團法人財務報告後之財務揭露情形。依據相關文獻歸納整理出五項良好財務揭露的特質，包括相關性、可供比較、忠實呈現、可被了解及可及性，作為評估醫療財團法人財務揭露之依據。並進一步利用公開的財務報告及訪談重要利害關係人，利用前述五項特質檢視與探討醫療財團法人財務報告是否達到良好完善之財務資訊公開的目標。\\r研究結果發現，若以五項良好財務揭露的特質來看，目前醫療財團法人在「相關性」與「可供比較」兩方面，不論在主客觀上，都較受到肯定；但在「忠實呈現」與「可被了解」部分，由於報表專業性較強，仍有許多可再改進的空間；最後，在「可及性」的部分，不論是在客觀制度上或是各群體的意見表達上，都認為有待加強。我們建議：一、主管機關在訂定相關法規和報表編製準則時，需更精緻地操作與醫療財團法人的雙向溝通；二、公開財務資訊為財務課責的第一步，未來應充分利用財務資訊，建立資訊解讀及回饋的機制，滿足不同使用者或醫院的不同需求，方能達到醫療財團法人財務課責的最終目的。

As the importance of non-profit organizations increases, public accountability of non-profit organization has attracted many discussions from scholars and practitioners in Taiwan. Financial accountability is a crucial dimension of public accountability, and the transparency of financial statements is the core of a good financial accountability. This research discusses the financial disclosure in non-profit hospitals in Taiwan after the amendment of Medical Care Act in 2005 which enforced nonprofit hospitals to reveal their financial statements on line. We use five characteristics of a good financial disclosure to examine the financial statement disclosures of these non-profit hospitals. The five characteristics include relevant, comparability, faithful representation, understability, and accessibility. Through examining the revealed financial statements on line and interviewing stakeholders, we explored the current status of financial accountability in non-profit hospitals. The findings indicate that the relevant and comparability are in relatively good status, but faithful representation and understability still need to be improved. But both scholars and experts argued that accessibility is far away from good. We suggest that firstly, Department of Health needs to have better communication with non-profit hospitals in deciding financial statement formats for disclosure. Secondly, by encouraging more scholars or experts to research the disclosured financial statement in order to provide better information to the public, the ultimate goal of the financial accountability will be achieved.