Not all healthcare IT innovations concern patient care – an important fact to consider when providers are looking to streamline costs.
That’s the premise behind OB10’s e-invoicing platform, now being introduced to large healthcare providers as a means of cleaning up the back end without affecting the healthcare delivery process. The eight-year-old European company with an office in Atlanta has so far established its clearinghouse network for two providers and will soon have four more joining the network, officials say.
“Accounts payable is largely a paper-intensive process that’s messy and prone to error,” said Thayer Stewart, the company’s vice president of marketing and business development in North America. He sees accounts payable as the “low-hanging fruit” that can be quickly cleaned up and improved through automation.
“Hospitals are very aware of cash flow management right now,” he said. “Within healthcare, so much of the IT budget goes to the patient side of the business, so we’re finding that CFOs are very receptive to what we have to offer because it doesn’t affect that.”
OB10’s two major healthcare clients are the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which contracted with the company in 2007, and Memorial Hermann Healthcare. The 14-hospital Houston-based healthcare system launched its Procure-to-Pay (P2P) initiative last year, contracting with OB10 to use e-invoicing and Pcard buyer-initiated payment services.
OB10 officials say e-invoicing costs at least 40 percent less than paper-based invoicing and cuts 10 to 15 days off the invoicing cycle. Aside from reducing paper or eliminating it altogether, officials said, the system also cuts down on errors commonly found in a manual process.
“With over 500,000 invoice or payment documents annually, over 12,000 contracts to manage and over 2 million touch points all operating within our accounts payable and supply chain, we saw multiple opportunities to streamline our operation and reduce costs,” said Donald Sands, Memorial Hermann’s director of system accounts payable, in a press release. “After careful consideration, we selected OB10’s best of breed approach because of their singular focus on the invoice data capture component as well as their extensive experience in working with large, complex organizations like ours.”
As further proof, OB10 points to an analysis of e-invoicing opportunities issued earlier this year by Gartner analyst Nigel Rayner.
“Large organizations processing hundreds of thousands of supplier invoices per annum should consider supplier e-Invoicing as part of a cost optimization program,” Rayner said in “Use Supplier E-Invoicing to Help Optimize Operating Costs,” issued March 24. “Supplier e-Invoicing networks offer a range of potential benefits, including improvements in AP processes by reducing invoice processing time and minimizing manual intervention, thus leading to a reduction in operating expenses.”