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August 10, 2020
A positive supplier relationship builds trust and loyalty – both important foundations when it comes to negotiating new contracts. Building on trust and loyalty with your suppliers can have financial reward such as: Avoid overcharges. Suppliers may be understaffed or have inefficient systems leading to charges on supplies or services higher than the agreed-upon terms. Recover and avoid duplicate payments. Duplicate payments happen in all health systems, but loyalty with suppliers can help keep them honest and return the duplicated payment before inquiring about it. Avoid charges for services not rendered. Purchased services can be complex to manage leading to […]
August 20, 2018
There are many moving parts within a large healthcare system. When departments aren’t communicating, costly problems often arise. A common issue we see among healthcare systems is allowing payments to continue after agreements have been canceled. Payment Process Breakdowns Let’s say a healthcare system has a multi-year maintenance agreement with a large medical supplier. After two years, the health system cancels the agreement, but the AP department is not notified. Later, the AP department receives a check request for a payment on the contract. No purchase order was used for the agreement. Without a PO to reference or notification of […]
January 23, 2018
When a hospital is purchasing new equipment, they will trade in their old equipment at the same time. Financially, it makes sense to trade items when the organization will no longer have use for the outdated equipment, and trading in can often cut some of the cost of new equipment. Your Accounts Payable department should track trade-in items to ensure accuracy. Oftentimes, items traded in during the purchase of new equipment are not tracked properly by the hospital’s Accounts Payable department. When trade-in items are not documented correctly, vendor mistakes can occur, such as not crediting the item’s value to […]
November 13, 2017
Major health systems have many departments that all have to work together seamlessly. A lack of departmental communication is inefficient and can lead to lost funds or overpayments. Contracts and maintenance agreements are renewed annually, or in some cases even less frequently. Because of all of the complexities of a healthcare organization’s day-to-day, Accounts Payable is not always alerted when changes are made during a contract’s renewal. If these changes are not clearly communicated, agreements may be overpaid or credits may be missed. When Lack of Departmental Communication Causes Problems Recently, a major healthcare system entered into a new service […]
