Amerinet Partners with ProMedica Health System
St. Louis-based Amerinet Inc., a national health care group purchasing organization, announced a partnership with Toledo-based ProMedica Health System to implement AccuPrice, daily price auditing software from Amerinet Diagnostix, in its laboratory to identify and resolve what turned out to be more than $8,000 a year in pricing errors.
ProMedica operates 10 hospitals and more than 280 other clinics and medical offices in Ohio and Michigan, and purchases about 500 laboratory product items on average every month. With that many purchases, it was critical for the laboratory purchasing process to be as efficient and effective as possible to ensure the organization was being charged the correct price for its ever-changing product mix.
"The goal was to know about tomorrow's price changes today," said John Krempa, ProMedica's laboratory purchasing agent. "To reach that point we needed to develop an entirely new system to ensure our pricing was accurate at the front, the middle and the end of the ordering process."
ProMedica recently completed a successful implementation of AccuPrice in its pharmacy and agreed to beta test this innovative software solution in the laboratory.
AccuPrice software combines master file maintenance, daily price audits and staff resources to quickly identify and resolve pricing errors. Each week, AccuPrice software reviews all purchases and submits an audit report by e-mail to ProMedica which includes key elements such as unfavorable variances as well as tier pricing. Facility summary reports capture and detail all pricing errors for specified time frames and include purchase dates, individual facility item numbers, purchase order numbers and dollar amount extensions of line item variances.
"AccuPrice is a great management tool," said Krempa. "We all lead busy lives and I only have to look at the AccuPrice summary report for a brief time each month and I have all the information I need. It's amazing to see how many items on the report have already been addressed."
Additionally, AccuPrice captures "exception pricing" that applies to specific products with special requirements for transportation, integrity packaging, Department of Transportation hazardous materials packaging, direct shipment, service and restocking charges.
Instead of constantly managing supplier prices every day, ProMedica's purchasing staff is now operating in a more efficient manner -- enabling more time to be spent on higher-level projects and goals. A full year after implementing the new laboratory purchasing process, AccuPrice captured more than $8,000 in pricing errors for ProMedica Health System.
"AccuPrice is an integral part of our laboratory purchasing solution and truly serves as our last line of defense in resolving pricing errors," said Krempa. "Amerinet continually proves to be a great partner in helping ProMedica Health System improve financial outcomes and quality of care."
More at www.amerinet-gpo.com.
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