| | November 202419UTLOOKHealthcare Tech About 13 years ago, I was an instructional designer for a different healthcare organization enjoying my role creating curriculum, facilitating training courses, and building eLearning lessons. I even traveled quite a bit since my employer had several hospitals across the Midwest. Then my life changed; I would be a mom, and traveling for lengthy work trips was no longer an option. I heard about a newly created department within the Revenue Cycle that would build payer contract rates directly into our electronic health record (EHR). Honestly, I still needed to learn what this job entailed and if I had what it took. I ended up loving the role and staying for 11 years before I saw an opportunity to share my knowledge with another hospital, creating the same department.Contract management creates, negotiates, builds, and monitors a contract within a healthcare system to maximize financial and operational performance and minimize compliance risk. Contract management is integral to the revenue cycle and involves several departments, including managed care contract negotiations, billing and coding, revenue integration, finance and accounting, and compliance. The challenge for healthcare organizations is that collaboration and communication between departments sometimes do not exist. Technology, such as contract management software, billing and payment software, and analytics and reporting tools, can vastly improve these other processes within the EHR.I want to zoom in on the building process within contract management. Depending on the EHR your organization has implemented, you might be able to build contracts directly into the system. Another option is to use a third-party vendor to import contract rates instead of keeping them in-house. Both have advantages and disadvantages. If your EHR enables you to build contracts into the system and you have decided to take this route, you must establish a team to build your payer contracts. This process will require hiring people with experience building contacts in an EHR and knowledge of hospital By Lisa Beekman, Director, Revenue Cycle Contract Model Build, Wellstar Health SystemCXO INSIGHTSThe technology considerably impacts the contract management process, whether managing the volume of contracts and keeping track of renewals or building contract ratesUtilizing Technology to Improve Contract ManagementLisa Beekman
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