GHX today announced three new consulting services for hospitals targeting the high levels of inaccuracy and inefficiency that result from a lack of automation in the implantable device supply chain (IDSC), an area responsible for $50 billion in annual spend(1) and $5 billion(2) in losses across provider and supplier organizations each year. GHX, the first to develop an end-to-end supply chain solution for implantable devices, now adds GHX IDSC Services to help hospitals achieve the greatest performance of their implantable device supply chain management, including use of the company’s recently launched Case XpertSM solution.
The new GHX IDSC Services include HCPCS Association Service, Item Master/Charge Master Synchronization Service, and IDSC Trading Partner Acceleration Service. The impact of these services is an increase in billing and reimbursement accuracy, and a reduction in billing rejections associated with implantable devices;improved efficiencies and reduced number of manual touch points required to send purchase orders;and the ability to meet supplier requirements.
“Providers should be able to know with confidence what they are buying, paying, charging and collecting for products and services related to implantable devices is correct,”said Paul Feicht, vice president of Customer Operations at GHX. “We are working closely with our customers to help ensure they are successfully reversing the historic gaps in business processes for implantable devices.”
HCPCS Association Service
The Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) plays a key role in enabling hospitals to be compliant in billing practices as well as helping to ensure they are reimbursed appropriately for products used in procedures. But in many cases, products within the implantable device supply chain have not been assigned these codes, leaving the billing department with the challenge of determining the item types and working to obtain more accurate and complete HCPCS codes to drive the most accurate reimbursements for the organization from the Centers for Medicare &Medicaid Services.
HCPCS Association Service works with provider organizations to help maximize reimbursements by associating HCPCS codes with items found in the item master, creating a link between the item master and charge master. This can result in greater accuracy in the billing process. Additionally, the review of the entire purchase order history can identify key items that need relevant HCPCS codes.
Item Master / Charge Master Synchronization Service
The data in a hospital’s item master drives supply chain processes as well as a broad range of clinical and financial functions. Accurate and updated product descriptions and pricing facilitate purchasing accuracy, contract compliance and revenue capture.
Item Master / Charge Master Synchronization Service helps hospitals overcome the challenges associated with inaccurate, outdated and erroneous data by synchronizing their item master and purchase order (PO) history with their charge master. The Item Master / Charge Master Synchronization Service provides a one-time data synchronization and assistance to customers developing processes to continually clean and condition data so it’s accurate and up-to-date. Clean, synchronized data helps reduce transaction errors, while making it easier to assign HCPCS codes for improved revenue capture and accurate reimbursement.
IDSC Trading Partner Acceleration Service
With manual processes and multiple touch points, hospitals can take up to 72 hours from the time of a clinical procedure to send a PO to a supplier. Not only does this manual process waste staff time and increase the risk of errors, it also means a hospital may not be in contract compliance with their suppliers, which typically require purchase order delivery in 48 hours or less.
IDSC Trading Partner Acceleration Service helps enable hospitals to send bill-only and consignment POs electronically to participating suppliers, helping them improve efficiencies and speed PO delivery to suppliers. With this, both providers and suppliers can manage replenishment times and inventory levels more effectively, and help ensure both organizations benefit from the contract terms they’ve agreed upon. This service delivers better visibility into internal processes and opportunities for improvement around implantable device management.
About Case Xpert and the IDSC
Case Xpert is the first-of-its-kind solution to capture and share data from case creation to product usage during procedures, creating usage capture capability while validating that the device is on contract for more accurate billing, purchasing and inventory tracking. A software-as-a-service application, Case Xpert is formed around a core set of integration and intelligent routing capabilities that is available to trading partners in a secure, cloud-based environment. The IDSC product family enables providers and manufacturers to initiate implantable device cases and track them through audit and completion using agreed upon item and price information maintained in Case Xpert, designed with HIPAA in mind. It also provides the ability to electronically send implantable device purchase orders via the GHX Exchange and automate the review and validation of information on the order, such as product data and price.
About GHX
Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) is driving costs out of healthcare by transforming the healthcare supply chain. Working with providers and suppliers, GHX is accelerating change by providing a faster, more efficient and collaborative supply chain that will take billions of dollars out of the cost of healthcare. For more information, visit www.ghx.com and The Healthcare Hub.