Building a successful practice today means going through complex contract negotiations and contract management processes to ensure your needs are met. It’s a daunting challenge to manage these areas in today’s world. Costs are on the rise, regulatory compliance continues to impact even more restrictions, and patients demand better service.
It’s always wise to work with a company that can handle contract negotiations for you and then continues to meet your needs with ongoing contract management services. However, even if you take on these steps yourself, there are five key mistakes organizations must avoid to streamline costs and improve efficiencies.
#1: Don’t Underestimate the Contract Development Timeline
Contract development takes time – it should take time. If the process moves too fast, clarity is often sacrificed. Your practice needs to have a clearly defined contract that protects your rights and ensures accuracy throughout the entire process. Working with a team to create a comprehensive, well-defined contract is critical as provider obligations increase. It is possible to maintain independence and compete in the marketplace without sacrificing what your business needs to thrive. Evaluating the competition, defining your market share, and evaluating your key selling points enables practices to create contracts better in line with their needs.
#2: Don’t Rush Through the Redlining Phase
Imagine your grade school English teacher working through the paper you just wrote, pulling out all of the unnecessary language and asking for changes that she sees as beneficial. The redlining phase of contract development should be much like this – eliminating clauses and details that put your practice at risk and creating a more streamlined, efficient process.
The goal is to bring everyone together on the same terms and conditions, but that doesn’t mean sacrificing what’s critical to your organization’s success. During the redlining phase, the goal is to analyze each component of a contract to determine if it is truly the best component or if there is a way to further enhance that stipulation, requirement, cost, or feature to better enhance your operations.
#3: Don’t Waste Time During Contract Execution
Effective contract management is key, and yet it is one of the most avoided components of the process of managing a practice. Most often, the first goal of any organization is to negotiate the best rate possible. Yet, that is rarely enough. Rather, it is necessary to maintain contract management over time. At the same time, time is money.
When it comes to the contract execution phase of the process, it is nearly always one that requires efficiency. You may be close to the finish line. However, mistakes here in getting those legally binding signatures can be disastrous. Instead of the traditional faxing process or having to have things hand delivered – which can often cause a loss of momentum in the process, enhance this process through technology. For example, the use of electronic signatures may be exactly what’s needed to move this project forward quickly without delay in finalizing the process. It’s also fully secure.
#4: Avoid Missing Important Deadlines and Not Automating Compliance
As you work through the contract, read the details. Whenever possible, ensure that you fully understand every component of that contract, including deadlines for the entire process. It is very common to make a mistake here – just to get the deal done and the contract signed. Yet, without a clear indication of what is to come and what expectations in deadlines exist, it can be a costly mistake for your practice.
Secondary to this is meeting compliance requirements. It’s a key mistake not to automate compliance. Because compliance requirements continue to be so important and grow in complexity each year, automation is the one surefire way to eliminate costly mistakes. You want to be sure there is no detail left out here – the partnership is fully understood, and regulations will be met.
#5: Not Providing Full Access to Legal Documents
Also essential in this process is providing full access to legal documents to your team. To maintain compliance, it is critical to get every detail just right. That is not always easy to do when all parties do not have access to the legal documentation they need. This is where having help from a trusted team comes into play.
By working with our team, we can help you to automate all of these complicated nuances that typically cause delays and limitations. We can help you with oversights that could delay contract success. Automation is an efficient solution that saves time and money.
Work with the Experts at PayrAdvisors
As a multispecialty managed care consulting and advising service, we help our clients grow their practice with exceptional attention to their contract management needs. Empower the success of your practice by partnering with our team. Contact us today to learn more about our dedicated team and a full suite of services.