Tackling Bill-Only Challenges
The Journal of Healthcare Contracting recently published an article featuring Northwestern Medicine and Casechek for their collaborative efforts to address the challenges of processing and managing Bill-Only payments in the healthcare supply chain. Casechek's platform, developed in partnership with Northwestern Medicine, automates workflows for implant supply chains, tackling the complexities of selecting patient-specific implants and resulting in significant cost savings and process improvements.
Some one in 10 Americans will have a medical device implanted into their bodies at some point in their lifetimes, according to the American Medical Association. But one size does not fit all for implant devices.
So, health systems are unable to stock patient-specific implants because most patients require implants specifically suited for them, making procuring and paying for patient-specific implants burdensome.
The process is referred to as “Bill-Only.” But what does the Bill-Only process mean to a health system’s bottom line?
“I think a lot of people’s first question would be ‘what are Bill-Only’s,’” said Alisha Beringer, director of supply chain for Northwestern Medicine. “I call it invisible dollars. It’s such a pain point on the hospital side. But when you tell people how much health systems can spend in product brought in by vendors, it’s staggering how much money can flow through a system without visibility or tracking.”
Read the full article here