Healthcare contract management relying on manual processes can reduce efficiency for healthcare contract stakeholders, decrease revenue, and increase liability. Contract lifecycle management bottlenecks can decrease the efficiency of resources, compromise contract security, and disorganize crucial data. Read on to learn how to leverage six healthcare contract management software tools for stronger contracts.
What is a Healthcare Contract?
A healthcare contract forms a binding agreement between consenting counterparties. These parties include health systems, managed care organizations (MCOs), pharmaceutical companies, patients, hospitals, vendors, and employees. A healthcare contract details the responsibilities and roles of each counterparty and their adherence to state and federal laws. A healthcare contract without the necessary components can leave counterparties in a compromised state.
What is Healthcare Contract Management?
Effective healthcare contract management centralizes processes from contract requests to renewals, including electronic signing, in a streamlined digital system. Healthcare contract management relying on divorced processes can:
- decrease contract management efficiency.
- increase undue contract risks.
- and leave your healthcare organization in a compromised state.
Healthcare Contract Management Software
Healthcare contract management software centralizes processes, technology, and people within a comprehensive platform that empowers healthcare contract managers. Without a healthcare contract management system, healthcare professionals can be overwhelmed by manually attempting to coordinate the various contract lifecycle management processes from varying locations - such as from shared drives, filing cabinets, and emails.
Tool #1 – Comprehensive Contract Lifecycle Management
Without comprehensive contract lifecycle management, healthcare contract management professionals can find themselves in disarray. Fortunately, leading-edge source to contract lifecycle management (CLM) software can centralize the entirety of CLM processes from requests to renewals – including:
- eSourcing.
- vendor management.
- automated contract requests.
- intelligent contract writing.
- online contract negotiations.
- electronic approvals.
- eSignatures.
- and robust post-execution contract tracking tools.
Tool #2 – A Secure Contract Repository
Healthcare organizations relying on shared drives, filing cabinets, and other risky contract repositories can leave their contracts in a vulnerable state. Thankfully a leading-edge health contract management software provider that is SOC 1, SOC 2, and Privacy Shield compliant can help securely and digitally centralize healthcare contract storage – helping to reduce risk and maintain trust with counterparties, including vendors. Easily search for documents, metadata, contract terms, and words within a secure database.
Tool #3 - Intelligent Workflow Automation
Overseeing each stage of healthcare contract management can prove overwhelming without the right automation features. Luckily, AI-based healthcare contract management software with intelligent contract workflow automation can reduce bottlenecks by helping automate:
- contract collaboration.
- negotiations.
- approvals.
- audit trails.
- milestones.
- compliance.
- key dates.
- and other contract processes.
Tool #4 – Searching & Tracking Oversight
Searching and tracking oversight in healthcare contract management without leveraging a leading CLM tool can prove challenging and time-consuming. Thankfully, reputable contract management software can equip healthcare contract managers with robust reporting, contract analytics, and financials tracking. Contract managers can assess detailed audit trails, contract spend against allotted budgets, employee task performance, vendor line items, and more.
Tool #5 - Contract Management Reports
Contract management reports requiring healthcare professionals to pull data from varying locations can prove highly tedious. Luckily, leading-edge healthcare CLM software allows healthcare contract managers to leverage robust ad hoc reports to report on virtually all data points – including financial commitments, contract performance, and key dates – in executive graphical dashboards that can be exported to multiple file formats.
Tool #6 - Compliance Oversight
The ability to ensure compliance is highly challenging for healthcare contract managers when manually assessing contract compliance against changing standards. Thankfully, healthcare contract managers can leverage a future-minded contract auditing tool to track ranging compliance standards – including HIPAA, OFAC, and federal regulations – to manage risk variables in record time. This can prove advantageous when assessing vendors and employees against OFAC’s national sanctions lists.
Stronger Healthcare Contract Management with CobbleStone Contract Insight®
Strengthen your healthcare contract management processes with an end-to-end, seamlessly integrated healthcare contract management solution. Holistic healthcare contract lifecycle management begins and ends with CobbleStone Contract Insight.
It's no wonder why Quadrant Knowledge Solutions recognizes CobbleStone as a CLM Leader in the Spark MatrixTM Report!
CobbleStone’s trusted, award-winning, fully integrated contract management software for healthcare and more provides governance and flexibility. CobbleStone’s user-friendly, robust, and scalable solution seamlessly integrates with mission-critical applications for managing contracts and more.
Discover why thousands of contract managers - including those in the healthcare industry - trust CobbleStone Software with their contract management needs with a free demo today!
This blog was originally published on September 1st, 2021, and was updated on April 12th, 2023.
