Hidden Fees of a Contract Lifecycle Management Implementation Gone Wrong

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Hi, my name is Marissa Crow, and I’m the Senior Director of Sales here at Ntracts. I’ve been in the healthcare Contract Lifecycle Management space for a little over 10 years, where my day to day role is speaking with hospitals and health care organizations across the country on how we can help them manage their contracts and contract compliance.

Today, I’ll be talking about the top hidden fees of Contract Lifecycle Management implementations gone wrong. And on this topic is specifically discussing organizations who have either migrated from no contract management system, or a competing Contract Management System, or even a good old SharePoint spreadsheet type system, really just the specific costs that can be tied to implementing different solutions, and how Ntracts can help. So we’ll start with the different types of implementations.

Typically, organizations are using one of the few systems a homegrown system, so a shared drive, they form a spreadsheet, some way that’s keeping track of their contracts, critical information around expiration dates, auto renewals, and ultimately just who they’re working with. We’ll also see organizations move to Ntracts from a what we would consider a competing system. So your other Contract Lifecycle Management Systems, and a lot of systems that are specifically what we would, we would categorize as industry diagnostic, meaning they’re not, they’re not healthcare specific. They’re, they’re just in the contract management space. So they work with multiple industries.

In my discussions with hospitals and health systems, we’ve walked through the solution and how we can really help. But a huge component of that is really the front end piece of implementing a contract management system. There are a lot of tools out there that can do a lot of important things. But if you don’t get the implementation, right, if you don’t get your information into the tool appropriately, if you don’t have a team to support you that understand your space, understand your contracts, understand your processes, and ultimately understands the regulatory components that are tied with your contracts. So whether that’s the OIG Joint Commission, d&b, you name it. So in today’s discussion, I’ll be talking about some of those hidden fees, every contract management, every contract management tool has a price tag to it, some are high, some are low, you get what you pay for in a lot of those

instances. But there are also a lot of hidden costs that can be associated with implementing a contract management system that may not be disclosed upfront. So some of the key elements and key areas that I’ll be discussing today are types of implementation services, technical resources, support, and potential limitations in those areas.

So some big questions that you may want to consider when you’re evaluating a contract management system to start is, what type of implementation is included? There are a lot of tools out there that will give you a tool, but it’s up to you and your team, your resources, your time your dollars, to actually implement those solutions. It’s really common in my discussions with healthcare organizations, if you’re in the legal department, if you’re in supply chain, no one has additional time to do these types of things. And you want to be doing your day to day you want to be working at your at top of license on your specific role. You don’t want to have to take the time to find contracts, load them in make sure they’re loaded, right train your sis, train your users build the system, it really is better suited to hand that over to someone who’s has more the expertise. And it’s also going to streamline your timelines. So when we talk about the types of implementation services that are included, we would advise to really dig into that right, they may say a solution may say implementation is included. But what does that mean? Does that mean that we’re going to show you how to use the system and it’s up to you are we going to provide real resources to come on either maybe even come on site and scan paper contracts, maybe help you sort through your existing electronic contract. So maybe we have all of our documents in a shared drive, they’re not organized appropriately, we really need to make sure that we’re getting all those organized prior to them going into a system, or the tool is really not going to matter. So just some other some big questions to ask the build out of the tool, it’s nice to be able to be able to build some things as an administrator of the system, etc. But is the is your partner going to help you build out your workflows, your repository, are there is their ability to customize it. So a big part of the implementation obviously, is designing the system around your contracts in your process. Oftentimes, a lot of tools are really configurable, but you still have to do it. You have to design it, you have to build it out. You have to know what you want. And oftentimes in those scenarios, you’re ending up having to resource that out to a third party or consultant which obviously has big dollars tied to it. So a big value of working with Ntracts being that a we were our 100% 100% dedicated to health care. But we also are supporting you fully through that implementation process and incorporating Best Practices along the way. So we’ve been doing this for a long time and Ntracts was originally founded in 1987, by Hall Render. So we have that just Healthcare Foundation to our system, even from the beginning. But we’re bringing that to the table during the implementation process. So as we’re building out the tool with you, so first off, we’re building it with you, you’re not having to do it. But as we’re building it out with you, we’re bringing to the table best practices, we are bringing to the table, we have worked with an implemented over 2500 healthcare organizations across the country, to help them build out their system. So we bring to the table also, here’s what other organizations are, are doing in their system, here’s what’s keeping them up at night, here’s the regulatory impact on some of these components. And here’s our recommendations, you also of course, get to decide how you want your tool built. But it really makes a huge difference and building out a system if you want to make sure that it’s set up the right way. So some big components that we’re providing, and some big questions that we would recommend asking as part of your evaluation process. And in addition to that, Are there fees for that a lot of times organizations will charge a separate implementation fee to implement a Contract Lifecycle Management System. And practice is not it’s a big value add with us, we do not charge for implementation or training for that matter. training

alone, as I’m sure a lot of administrators who may be watching this video can attest to, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of time to sit, sit down and training user and continue to provide educational materials, or build out the educational materials to give to give your end user Ntracts takes that heavy lifting off as well, we will we will provide the training for your team, we will train based on the role. So an administrator of the tool that needs to do so many things in the system does not need that high level of training, they someone that just needs to come into the tool and view contracts or request something that’s a much simpler training, we provide educational materials, as well. So to be able to reference our reference guides, again, all of those things take time, they take resources, they can take money on your organization, we take all of that off. So as you’re evaluating solutions, not only it what implementation services are included, are there limits to that. So sometimes organizations will say we’ll help you with implementing, but you only get X number of hours of support from us. If you go over that, then there’s an additional fee. I talked with healthcare organizations all the time, where they’re blowing through those hours before the implementation is even halfway done. So those are additional costs you’re already in, you’re already in it. So you kind of have to keep going. And it’s additional costs that that weren’t planned for budgeted for that you don’t have to do. So again, some some big areas to look out just around implementations as a whole.

Another big component is who is doing your implementations are the implementation services outsourced, meaning they’re outsourced to a third party, maybe it’s someone that doesn’t understand this, a doesn’t understand the healthcare space, but maybe they’re just really that IT support, they don’t have the consultative type approach to building out your contract management system. Again, good data in good process and good data good process out, we want to make sure that we get it right on the front end, and then put it into the system and let the system do all the amazing things that it does. But if you put the wrong process and you put the wrong data in, the tool really doesn’t matter. Right. So it really makes a big impact on the initial implementation process.

Once we’ve understood who’s doing our implementation, what level of expertise do they bring to the table? Are they again, are they maybe just bringing the IT support which is needed, obviously in in technology implementation? Or do they have that expertise in your space? So specifically for us, our organization is designed for healthcare 100% dedicated to health care, we also have a 100% implementation success rate. So really proud of that that’s hard for a lot of organizations to say, but specifically the individuals that are implementing your system, do they understand contract management?

Do they understand healthcare contracts? Do they understand the difference between a physician contract and a vendor agreement and a payer contract in a lease? Do they understand the impact of the regulatory requirements that are so different for each of those things? And all of the different processes that have to be followed the standard policies and procedures that have to be incorporated, making sure that someone understands that expertise is going to help make the implementation not only run smoother, but it’s going to design design wise, it’s going to match your process, your end users are going to be happy because the tool feels like they designed it because they did right they were involved in the implementation process and our team really helped guide that guide that initiative

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specifically around Around the expertise as as I mentioned, the implementation team who is provided with that the expertise that’s brought on for that initiative. Another component to really pay attention to during your implementation process is what IT resources are going to be needed? Is the solution you’re considering an on prem solution? Or is it SAS based?

If teams are constantly working on big initiatives, large projects, it takes a lot of time, as I’m sure you all can relate to that to implement any type of technology making sure we have the appropriate IT resources involved, or just our appropriate internal resources involved as a whole. So a lot of times those projects can are going to have to be scheduled out, it is busy, they have a lot of projects, we need to make sure the right risk assessments are done, which obviously most organizations should be happy to do. But as far as the build out of the tool, what IT resources, what technical resources do you need. Big value with Ntracts is we are very what I like to say it like obviously, it is more than welcome to be involved in our implementation processes. But we really take the heavy lifting off of your organization, not only from your legal compliance, purchasing teams, whoever’s managing the contract tool, but your IT teams as well, the minimal IT requirements that we need our eyeties help with in implementing single sign on, which is a pretty straightforward implementation. But we usually get a lot of positive feedback that we really don’t need much IT support, it has enough things going on. Let us take that on. We provide the implementation support from an IT perspective during the implementation process, and ongoing. So maintenance, all that sent by us. And regarding implementation, I’ve talked about a that included be how much is included and see who who’s providing that service to you.

Something else to think about during the implementation process around how much is included, I mentioned, you know, are there limits on ours are there set costs for that, etc. But as you think about ongoing support, what does support look like post implementation, right, we provided you a solution, we got your tool up and running. And then once it’s live, a lot of organizations, unfortunately, they’ll say kind of call us if you need us, there may be a help desk, you can reach out to us base, maybe not. They may provide account management, maybe not. And so the ability to understand who’s going to support your organization moving forward with the Ntracts solution, not only as I mentioned, that we do we help heavily in the implementation process. But the support definitely doesn’t stop there. We provide a client support advisor immediately post go live, that is someone who has been involved in a in the implementation process, they so they understand your organization, they understand your processes, they understand your contracts, that person stays on immediately post implementation to help with the official transition on to Ntracts, we have found that that is is the most effective way to help with user buy in to be able to make sure that the tool is is routing appropriately, we do a lot of proof of concept during implementation. But once real contracts or routing through new users are in the system, we we things may be tweaked or changed and more education needs to be provided that client support advisors role is to help with all of that for a temporary amount of time post go live, we have found that it is extremely effective with user buy in. And it is made sure that users like the system etc. As it goes live. Post that client support advisor we the support doesn’t stop with Ntracts, we have a help desk and account management team that are at your fingertips for anything that you need as well. I cannot say enough great things about Ntracts implementation support, but just support overall, we have a 98% client retention rates, we’re really proud of that. And a huge component of that as our support, if you talk to our clients. That is the biggest thing that they will tell you is that the support for Ntracts is phenomenal. We had a client tell us that it feels like we that they are our only client. That’s how well

they’re supported within Ntracts. So I can’t say enough good things. But it’s also something to really look at when you’re evaluating contract management solutions. Is what’s the implementation support look like? We’ve we’ve covered that, but ongoing? What type of support do I get to get support? Is their account management Help Desk? Where are they located? What are the hours? How often can I reach out to them? Are there limits on reaching out to support? So a lot of organizations or a lot of contract management systems? If they’re capping the implementation hours, they’re probably capping the support hours too. So something that you should consider as you think about how much support am I going to need? Am I gonna is it going to be a hidden cost that I’m not accounting for making sure that we’re really understanding that before we make our decisions on a contract management solution? So ongoing support help desk it really again, makes all the difference in the world. If a user is stuck in the system, they can’t figure something out. It’s going to Do not help with user by and right, if a user is frustrated, they can’t figure something out, they need someone to be able to help them, we provide training to the system administrator at your organization. So they should a system administrator or depending on how large your organization is multiple System Administrators should be available as an internal resource. Again, we provide resource guides, again, our team builds those, you don’t have to build them. A lot of times those resource guides will also be linked into an intranet. So maybe it’s even part of your onboarding process. So being able to even have that part be associated, but making sure that that user feels supported. It makes all the difference in the world with that user liking the system and making sure that you have that user buy in, which obviously trickles down the stream of users are using the system. It’s making us more efficient. It’s providing us that ROI, how many days are we saving, just not having to answer a million phone calls of where am I contracts? How do I do this all that supported by Ntracts, we build it out with you to really make sure that you’re capturing all of that important information. Again, really impactful information and really some just big topics as you’re considering Contract Lifecycle Management Solutions. Not every solution is the same. Not every tool has the same exact functionality. And every organization is definitely not providing the same level of support and expertise. So really just some key elements to really look at your contract management initiatives. And make sure that we’re really looking at the whole picture from a cost perspective, from a resource perspective, from a timing perspective, and just making sure we have all of our questions answered as we look through the system. If you have any additional questions about Ntracts and how our implementation process works, what our support team looks like, or even just overall information about our expertise in this space, we’d love to talk with you. Thanks