Overview
This US health insurance provider has more than 4,500 employees who serve more than 3 million policyholders. The company has adopted an apexanalytix supplier onboarding solution that makes it easy to enforce the unique regulatory and compliance requirements of the healthcare industry.
“The consistency of our vendor master is now better than ever—giving us the contact data needed for dynamic discounting. We expect discounting will generate new revenue that will more than cover the cost of our new registration software.”
- Director of Strategic Sourcing & Procurement
Challenge
Disjointed, paper-based onboarding processes were making it impossible for the insurer’s procure-to-pay team to respond to urgent onboarding requirements without compromising controls. It could take a month or more to validate critical data manually and to determine whether a supplier was a prohibited entity or on the CMS “do not pay” list. Executives also suspected their vendor master file was riddled with errors. They looked for a technology-based solution that could help them improve onboarding response times, cleanse vendor data, reduce risks, and respond to the healthcare industry’s unique and ever-changing compliance needs.
Solution
The insurer turned to apexanalytix for a HIPAA-compliant portal that would automate onboarding for 100 percent of its suppliers – providing the highly configurable controls needed for automatic data validation and policy enforcement. The team now benefits from an intelligent workflow, automated alerts and a comprehensive audit trail. Bi-directional integration with the insurer’s ERP eliminates rekeying, which preserves data integrity and impedes internal fraud.
Results
• Reduced the turnaround time for new supplier registrations from multiple weeks or months to just 1 to 5 days.
• Improved vendor master accuracy and consistency through automated compliance screening and data validation.
• Established a comprehensive audit trail for automated change logging and reporting.
• Discovered nearly $2.8 million in previously unidentified diversity spending.
• Positioned the company for future strategic initiatives, including an ROI-driven early-pay discounting program that is on the company’s near-term roadmap.