Most industries possess specific rules and regulations they need to follow, and healthcare is no exception. In fact, the laws and regulations existing under healthcare require greater diligence than in other industries.
In essence, “what is contract management in healthcare” means ensuring a healthcare practice complies with strict regulations, laws, terms, confidentiality, etc. Complying with healthcare regulations becomes a job itself.
The right healthcare strategy ensures your practice maintains healthcare compliance. Next, we’ll explore healthcare contract management’s different components and challenges.
You can also make your contract management process easier by exploring your medical billing and coding franchise business opportunity with Practice Forces!
Unique Challenges Contract Management Faces in Healthcare
There are many unique challenges contract management faces in the healthcare industry.
One example includes the series of Stark Laws. These laws prohibit a physician from recommending that a Medicaid or Medicare patient receive healthcare from an entity that has a financial relationship with the physician. The Anti-Kickback Statute covers a broader range of physicians.
Other healthcare contract management challenges include:
- State and federal compliance: Any new contract must comply with FDA, HIPPA, and HITECH. These compliance rules can change, and any new agreement needs to reflect these changes.
- Standardized process: A standardized process ensures consistency across every healthcare operation.
- Security concerns: Medical contracts contain patients’ sensitive information. One way to prevent data breaches and other problems is appropriately organizing and storing your contracts.
- The threat of errors: Errors happen, but in the case of the medical field, a small mistake may result in huge expenses.
- Preventing document expiration: Keeping a record of all credentials ensures documents don’t expire.
- Overall time management: Of course, drafting, finishing, and storing medical documents takes up a lot of time.
How to Make Contract Management in Healthcare Easier
After knowing “what is contract management in healthcare,” your next question is probably how to make the process easier. Many healthcare organizations still rely on paper filing for many of their contracts. However, this old-fashioned method is both unreliable and time-consuming.
Contract management software is the best solution for managing your healthcare contracts. By using the right software, you’ll gain many benefits such as:
- Better organization: Contract management software automatically centralizes your insurance, patient, and provider contracts across all departments and healthcare facilities.
- Easily set permissions: You can easily set permissions and only grant contract visibility to the right people.
- Procedures and policies linkage: Contracts may require different policies and procedures, and keeping track of them on paper is a headache. However, contract management software links each contract with its policies or practices.
- Easily connect to your CRM: While not necessary, linking contracts with your CRM significantly cuts down on time by eliminating redundancies.
Call PracticeForces Today
Your contract management team fulfills a considerable responsibility, but sometimes your team needs extra help.
Besides trying to figure out contract management software yourself, outsourcing is another option. Our PracticeForces team is eager to assist, and we can handle your contracts and grow your practice.
Learn more about our services and discover “what is contract management in healthcare” by calling PracticeForces today at (727) 732-2831 or our patient line at (727) 771-1300!
