Overview

This nonprofit medical center operates an 880+-bed hospital, as well as a multispecialty academic healthcare science center. It employs a staff of more than 12,000 who care for a diverse community in one of the largest cities in the US. The organization is committed to pioneering medical research achievements and to quality innovations that are helping to define the future of healthcare.

Challenge

The medical center’s accounts payable team processes more than a billion in payments each year. As part of their commitment to continuous improvement, team leaders wanted to audit their work to look for duplicate payments and unapplied statement credits. They decided to examine nearly four years of payment activity spanning $7 billion in spending.

Solution

A team of expert auditors from apexanalytix used artificial intelligence technologies to audit the organization’s accounts payable activity. As a result, they were able to analyze data and make recoveries faster than with a traditional, manual review. They also were able to mine for insights that could protect future disbursements and keep the medical center’s accounts payable team on the path to peak performance.

Results

• Analyzed more than 840,000 invoices and nearly 2,600 supplier statements.

• Identified and recovered $1.2 million attributed to duplicate payments, pricing discrepancies, unclaimed credits and rebates.

• Uncovered the root causes of errors and recommended process changes and best practices, including greater consistency in creating and managing purchase orders and in tracking rebates and returns.

• Generated reports on invoice workflow, spending, cash flow, days payable outstanding, and stratification of vendors, invoices and payments.

• Provided metrics, trend reports and peer comparisons to support benchmarking and continuous improvement.