In the field of healthcare, contracts are essential to the transfer of care, employment, and technology licensing, as well as experimental treatments as well as confidentiality, and telehealth, and more. The typical organization may possess thousands of contracts covering various departments and facilities along with providers, payers, business associates, and third-party organizations.
The traditional approaches to contract management that many healthcare facilities currently employ that are based around spreadsheets and shared drives aren’t just inefficient (and thus expensive); they also expose organizations to risk. This is because they increase the likelihood of contracts being mismanaged. Often do not enforce them and enhance compliance with regulatory and business processes, which can result in late deadlines and other obligations and result in audit trails difficult to monitor and keep track of.
Utilizing the latest healthcare contract management softwarecan provide enormous business advantages. These includes
Ensuring Better Collaboration
Even basic healthcare contracts could have multiple parties involved and different versions and have limited visibility of the review process. Healthcare contract management software allows organizations work together and make agreements in real-time while simultaneously taking a look, approving, making notes on documents, and then performing them electronically.
Additionally, it makes the procedure more effective, and the real-time CLM collaboration capabilities enable organizations in the field of healthcare to keep track of any edits or comments made during the negotiation process, thereby providing an entire history of engagement and the audit trail.
Link contracts to their policies and Procedures
Contracts are a reference point and can be paired with policies and procedures; however, it’s very easy for these documents to be separated in the storage process. It is essential to keep them in sync so that you can refer to exactly what’s contained in the policies and procedures document.
This is a breeze with an electronic system for managing contracts. It is necessary to organize and save the contracts and the policies and procedures they contain electronically to keep and link the two documents.
Minimizing Risk
Automating and running large-scale tasks like workflows and alerts helps eliminate late renewals and other crucial deadlines and obligations. Healthcare facilities can quickly reconcile fee schedules and various other administrative tasks. A solid, central, and dynamic system to manage these tasks and alerts decreases the chance of something getting missed and also eases the stress of managing contracts on staff.
Ensuring compliance
Making sure you comply with HITECH, JCAHO, Stark Law, HIPAA, Medicare billing, and other regulations and security standards isn’t a simple task, particularly when it is a legal agreement. Healthcare contract management software aids healthcare providers in managing the entire compliance process, starting from the initial writing of agreements to the after-execution and execution phase of contracts. Additionally, reporting all the required compliance-related data can be completed within minutes.
Reduced Cost and Complexity
Negotiating and managing contracts with providers, payers, and other suppliers like BAAs or Physician Participation Agreements are becoming ever more difficult without the appropriate tools. Contracts related to healthcare are becoming more complicated to design, negotiate, implement, and maintain throughout the entire lifecycle of the contract.
Management of different contracts for services and physicians, as well as regulatory compliance standards and various other state and federal regulations, is costly and time-consuming. Healthcare contract management software replaces the manual processes and paper documents with a computerized and digital solution, which results in greater efficiency, as well as greater speed and flexibility in the course.
Integrate your CRM with Contracts
Have your agreements been integrated with your CRM? Although it’s not required, it could be beneficial.
This is because implementing a healthcare contract management system integrated with your CRM will help reduce redundancies and ensure that contracts are readily accessible from vendors and patient records. This can streamline the initial process for processing contracts, and any subsequent interactions employees have concerning your contract.
Increased visibility
It can be challenging to keep track of everything with documents scattered throughout the world. Thus, an automated system can provide a central repository that lets stakeholders and legal experts stay on top of compliance, regulations, and procurement. In this way, you will be able to get background information, stay clear of fines, and adhere to compliance with Stark Law or Anti-Kickback Statute.
Customized alerts
Health institutions must be conscious of renewal deadlines to keep a check on agreements. If you don’t want to risk losing funds on services that are not required, such as guaranteed equipment or employees, you shouldn’t ignore these clauses. When you set up prompt notifications and alerts, you can reduce the chance of not taking the necessary action to address urgent concerns.
Optimizing Processes
A method of healthcare contract management based on data management offers healthcare companies useful and precise insights into the blockages that impede contract negotiations and the capability to enhance the workflow process to increase efficiency. This allows them to respond to issues that arise effectively. Businesses can operate quicker and significantly improve their financial results by automating and streamlining CLM processes through software for managing the lifecycle of healthcare contracts.
Final words
As healthcare contracts get more complex, the tools that manage them must be kept up to date. Software for managing the lifecycle of healthcare contracts is a central, digital basis for modern contract management by providing an array of integrated tools that manage all tasks that come with the creation of healthcare contracts and execution, negotiation, and management, including rights and obligations following execution, and reviews.