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The Role of Automation in Bridging the Gap between Provider Contract & Provider Compensation

Making sure that your contract management process is optimal is no easy task. With the number of provider contracts increasing exponentially every quarter, the challenges associated with ¬¬provider contract management is becoming more and more prominent. Traditional Contract Management struggles to understand the complexity of Provider agreements rendering them limited for utilization in this very large and essential workforce. The lack of an appropriate Provider Contract Management system creates challenges with transparency, time leakage, elevated risks and increments the chance of human errors. Organizations must bridge the gaps between provider contracts and provider compensation in today’s contract management solution.

As the volume of contracts continue to pile up and complexities increase, the problems for not having a provider contract management solution becomes more evident. The focus must squarely shift to smart automation. A recent survey revealed that a significant percentage of healthcare professionals worldwide have concerns over the problems associated with manual management. Automation is instrumental in bringing accuracy and eliminating calculation errors by bridging the gap between provider contract and provider compensation processes. Let’s examine in detail:

Smoother, Streamlined Process Flows

For connecting provider contract and provider management processes in the most effective manner, a wide range of business stages and relationships have to be maintained. There are contract draft versions to be managed, project deadlines to be met, dates to be decided, inputs to be incorporated, and several other associated tasks. Negotiations regarding any (or all) provider agreements can lead to unnecessary delays, conflicts and confusions. Through automation, companies can keep such problems at an arm’s length from their contract management services. Since contract drafts and versions can be stored securely in the cloud, edits can be done as and when required, and all authorized parties can access the details with ease – information gaps between contract and compensation processes become minimal. The effectiveness of the process is also enhanced by the better visibility for both healthcare organizations and physicians that automation ensures. Reducing the overall time in the provider compensation process, healthcare organizations can invest more time in improving actual patient care services. Automation makes the responsibilities of your personnel more well-defined than ever before.

Enhanced Contract Visibility; Real-Time Analytics

Lack of adequate visibility is easily one of the biggest issues of provider contract management solutions. For any organization looking to achieve a proper collaboration between provider contracts and provider compensation, using an automated provider contract management solution that understands the complexity of agreements and variabilities of arrangements is an absolute must for healthcare organizations. Such software platforms make the overall contract handling more efficient – with accurate and real-time tracking of dates and deadlines, the revenue figures generated, contract stages and progress, compliance information, and other details. Since real-time tracking is possible, there are no risks of manual inaccuracies creeping in. That, in turn, builds the confidence and mutual trust for both providers and physicians. Sticking with the traditional manual or standard contract management solutions makes it impossible to track complex provider contract details as quickly, or as accurately.

Zero Uncertainties Over Project Completion

In many cases, conflicts between provider contracts and compensation arise from poor contract completion rates and uncertainties regarding the same. Smart automation can effectively remove this problem as well. Digital solutions ensure significantly higher contract lifecycle completions, while delays associated with contract disputes, sign-off and other related details are minimized. The capability of automated physician contract management solutions to capture/store e-signatures is yet another advantage. The lower the uncertainties, the quicker and more efficient the process, and traditional silos are removed.

Easier Compliance With Provider Contract Tracking

For the average healthcare organization, the number of active provider contracts continues to grow each year. Now, not all contracts come with the same compliance requirements – with different contracts having different policies, terms of use, and other legalities. With the help of the built-in contract tracking feature of automated solutions, these varying compliance needs can all be monitored with ease. The shorter time between designated milestones and completed tasks also reduces the chances of provider contract/provider compensation gaps and disputes. In case there are deviations from the planned workflow, all relevant parties can be informed immediately.

Smoother Negotiations & Internal Processes

Physician contract negotiations with third parties – when done manually – can take up a lot of time. Add to that the lengthy in-house contract review and approval times, and the overall provider contract lifecycle span becomes unduly long and inefficient. Automated contract management solutions do away with these problems too. Apart from direct and on-time communication with external parties, a digital platform helps with intuitive order signing and automatic notifications about in-waiting contracts for healthcare providers. Approval times become shorter as a direct result – and this also contributes towards lowering the gap between provider contracts and compensation processes.

Greater Security; Lower Costs

Automation is instrumental in lowering the overall burden on project administrators at healthcare organizations in general. A lot of sensitive, confidential data have to be shared with and accessed by, people working from remote locations as well as contingent/freelance/external workers. In the absence of automation and cloud-based security, the risks of information leaks and unauthorized data access remain high. With the help of automated provider contract management services, all data gets stored in the cloud, with accessibility being uniformly easy (for authorized parties). Things like payment delays, compensation disputes and non-compliance can also lead to the escalation of contract costs – and these risks can be mitigated effectively as well through suitable automation. In a nutshell, automation enhances the ease of providers contract administration manifolds. The administration is happy, providers are happy – and the quality of service is optimal.

Removal Of Departmental Silos

Delayed communication and information gaps between the different departments of a medical organization can lead to poor synergies between provider contracts and compensations. This pain-point can be easily removed by state-of-the-art contract lifecycle software. The software makes sure that all traditional departmental silos are removed – and everyone has real-time access to relevant, role-specific information. As a result, provider contract documents can be stored, accessed and tracked by anyone within the organization (for internal purposes) on their respective devices. All role-specific contract details become available at fingertips (quite literally) – and gaps between the different stages of physician contract management are removed.

Smart Integrations

Different workflows require different tools – and managing all of them simultaneously is a hassle. In order to ensure full collaboration of all such tools (e.g., Google Drive, Salesforce, Dropbox, etc.), a centralized and automated provider contract management platform is required. Apart from helping in the creation of better contracts, ensuring higher visibility and reducing the gap between provider contract and provider compensation, automation also pulls up the effective productivity of all the tools that are being used. Seamless integrations, better results.

Better Searchability & Management

In the absence of a software-based physician contract management solution, searching for anything (say, a particular set of terms or clauses) can be a hugely time-consuming affair. The entire document has to be checked, and there is the very real possibility of people missing an important section while searching. One of the key features of digital contract lifecycle management platforms is their easy searchability – thanks to their built-in search algorithm. This ensures that there are no additional delays in resolving provider contract-provider compensation uncertainties. Automation also puts full control in the hands of the management – with alerts & notifications for deadlines, due dates, payments, license/contract renewals and other key details. Missing an important stat can cause problems in the contract management process – automation makes sure there are no chances of that.

From our discussion, it is pretty much evident that automation is the key to efficient, end-to-end provider contract management services. With faster draft creation, easy compliance, cutting-edge security, e-signature facilities, real-time contract tracking, reduced expenses, and more, digital platforms can make healthcare contracts more effective, thereby taking overall productivities to the next level. Bridging the gap between provider contract and provider compensation is vital for ensuring optimal contract performance – and automated solutions are absolutely instrumental for that.