10 Ways a Contract Management System Can Benefit Your Healthcare Organization Now!

Healthcare executives have experienced a tumultuous few years as our global community has navigated the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic highlighted deficiencies across all businesses as workforces quickly moved from brick-and-mortar locations to fully remote work. Healthcare executives not only navigated the transition to remote work for many staff, but also managed the essential workers required to get us through the darkest of days.

As we’ve come up for air, there’s been no shortage of opportunities to evaluate how we can improve business systems and processes. It’s become not only helpful – but critical – to have nimble and compliant operations with quickly accessible information and detailed reporting metrics. Ntracts Contract Management Software can support this effort by streamlining, standardizing, and mitigating risk for your organization. Need more incentive? Check out the top 10 ways a contract lifecycle management system can support your healthcare organization now!

  1. Organization of Data. A contract management software can organize the countless paper files you have sitting in that filing cabinet – yes that one right by your desk under lock and key! – and digitize them for upload into your contract management system. Then, further organize files with the ability to align and digitally connect master agreements, amendments, and other supporting documentation, allowing you to link all relevant documents into one contract record.

Overwhelmed by the number of contracts you’d need to digitize? Ntracts can provide a “Call to Contracts” as part of your implementation where our team works with departments (on-site or remotely) to streamline and guide the process of collecting and gathering contracts for upload.

 

  1. Ease of Accessibility to Complex Data. A contract management platform will allow you to tag, search, and easily access data that would otherwise require pouring over pages of contract legalese. Ntracts captures different datapoints for your varying contract types and then allows this data to be searchable and reportable. Any datapoint that is important to you can be quickly and easily captured, defined, and collected within the platform.

 

  1. Streamlining Physician Contracting. The complexity of physician contracting is a well-known challenge and requires accurate maintenance of data to ensure compliance and effective negotiations. A contract management solution can assist you in tracking and easily accessing the many components of physician contracts, from hours expected, to administrative duties required, to liability and other insurance coverages.

Similarly, the ability to evaluate contractual data against payments to physicians allows healthcare organizations to actively monitor for potential fraud, and through proactive reporting of discrepancies and voluntary disclosure, providers can avoid the stress and disruption of a potential investigation. Without this level of reporting, healthcare providers risk not being able to self-disclose and, in turn, significant financial repercussions.

 

  1. Properly Evaluate Auto-Renewals. Healthcare executives are often responsible for multiple facilities and hundreds if not thousands of vendor agreements, meaning the management of multiple leases, agreements, and other related documentation.

A contract management solution can help you to proactively identify important renewal dates. By defining the number of days notice you’d like to have in advance of an agreement’s auto-renewal or termination date, you can engage an automated Ntracts workflow to manage the entire process on your behalf. When it comes time to sign, you can do so directly in the system via DocuSign, with whom Ntracts is a Certified Partner. What’s more? The adoption of the e-signature feature has contributed to a 47% reduction in the time it took for the signature processes to be completed!

 

  1. Gain Compliance Confidence. Ntracts contract lifecycle management solution was created by legal professionals and continues to be powered by Hall Render, the nation’s largest healthcare law firm. This partnership affords healthcare executives the peace of mind of knowing that its contract management solution is legally sound.

With best practices built directly into the platform, the solution serves as regulatory compliance software and can support an organization through the many regulatory and compliance updates the industry sees such as the changes to Stark Law we saw in 2020.As contract processes constantly evolve, partnering with a contract management system that’s powered by a law firm supports healthcare organizations in operating intentionally to streamline, centralize, and create consistency with their contracts.

 

  1. Emergency Preparedness. Having experienced the Covid-19 pandemic, few healthcare leaders need reminding that emergency preparedness is critical to operational longevity. Automating previously manual processes, like contract management, best allows businesses to react fluidly to changing circumstances without risking compliance.

Take BJC Healthcare, who implemented Ntracts in 2018, for example. With the support of Ntracts contract management software, BJC Healthcare was able to effectively service their workforce and their broader healthcare community during this extraordinary time. Furthermore, they were able to expedite rush contracts during a time when so many healthcare systems were searching for PPE, while simultaneously accessing past vendors who, in many cases, were able to fill their PPE needs.

 

  1. Amplify Your Legal Experts with Our CLM Experts. Many software companies continue to diversify, and as they diversify, they can often lose focus on any one of their offerings, such as healthcare contract management technology. Although their solutions offerings grow from one to many, their support team does not grow proportionally. This means that many software companies make the mistake of utilizing a single help/support desk to advise on multiple markets and multiple technology solutions. Making it impossible for their support team to be experts in every solution offered. Customers needing guidance, tech support, or access to their own data can suffer due to partnering with a software company whose support desk is stretched too thin and whose support members lack subject matter expertise.  [Read related post: Get the Support Your Organization Deserves from your Contract Lifecycle Management Platform.]

 

  1. Preserving Precious Resources. An organization’s most important resources – the experienced professionals on their team – are often so burdened with administrative tasks that they’re unable to realize their full potential. Unlock that potential by implementing a contract management solution to automate your processes and maximize the time of precious resources.

 

  1. Standardization of Operating Procedures. A successful contract management process incorporates best practices and consistently evolves to meet a healthcare organization’s dynamic needs. Ntracts experts will work with your organization to understand existing policies and procedures, develop future state recommendations, and prepare and train on new contract management standards of procedure to best support your operation. Increased operational efficiency is a key component to a successful contract management process, and Ntracts’ experts will support healthcare leaders in achieving this goal.

 

  1. ROI and Cost Savings. The mismanagement of contracts in healthcare can have a significant impact on the bottom line, potentially risking millions of dollars. Whether it’s overpaying on an expired contract, allowing for auto-renewal of a contract that no longer serves the organization, or paying multiple vendors to provide the same service. These mistakes can compound exponentially with a high volume of contracts.

The reality is: the lack of basic contract management no longer supports the dynamic landscape of a healthcare system; automation is no longer simply an option, but a necessity. In addition to preventing unnecessary spending, a contract management service can also introduce savings. Service contracts frequently offer discounted rates after a certain amount of time, and without a system in place to recognize these opportunities, they will be missed.

The benefits of an expert-led implementation to automate, optimize and maximize your healthcare system’s contracts will be realized quickly. Take advantage of Ntracts predictable pricing model and extensive internal expertise by requesting a demo today! Our team is eager to support you and will be with you every step of the way.