An electronic exchange specializing in healthcare and a provider of payment processing solutions and services say they are teaming up in efforts to speed the invoice-to-payment process for hospitals.
Louisville, Colo.-based GHX and Dallas-based BancTec have announced plans to offer OnDemand AP as a software-as-a-service solution.
The companies say OnDemand AP will enable hospitals to receive all invoices electronically, even from suppliers who submit invoices via fax or mail. This is important because certain facets of supply ordering in healthcare are still paper-based, and an inability to automate these purchasing activities slows automation.
A recent survey of hospitals by PayStream Advisors found that a majority of institutions receive more than 75 percent of their invoices on paper. In addition, more than two-thirds of hospitals said they are unable to capture all discounts for early payment because of the volume of discrepancies and exceptions.
The companies say they expect OnDemand AP to streamline the accounts payable process, helping reduce inventory processing costs and cycle time, improve internal controls and productivity and optimize cash flow. It can be used to facilitate invoice receipt, document image and data capture, purchase order matching, general ledger coding, and archive and workflow management.
The companies predict the service can help facilities realize significant cost savings, including productivity gains of as much as 50 percent to 75 percent, and savings of as much as 25 percent of the time spent to reconcile invoices.
Automation of this type also will enable facilities to take advantage of discounts for making payments in advance.
BancTec's accounts payable solution and business process outsourcing services will be integrated into the GHX solution architecture to provide the service to facilities, the companies said.