Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) has launched the latest version of its interoperable industry portal for contract price alignment functionality designed to resolve the root cause of price alignment issues in healthcare. The GHX Collaboration Portal is designed to sync information on all stakeholders involved in a contract within the healthcare supply chain - the manufacturer, distributor, group purchasing organization (GPO) and provider - in one place to achieve price alignment.
The new features and functionality in GHX Collaboration Portal have been integrated with Premier, Inc.’s performance improvement platform PremierConnect® to improve the price activation experience for manufacturers. The portal is also being enhanced to include distributors in the price activation workflow. With Collaboration Portal, a contract can be delivered via electronic data interchange (EDI) to a distributor the same day it is executed and new prices loaded by all stakeholders more quickly and efficiently. This helps to eliminate inaccurate purchase orders, disputed invoices and rebate/chargeback discrepancies, as well as provide timelier response rates for all stakeholders.
“The GHX Collaboration Portal addresses the root cause of many of the contracting price errors in healthcare due to information that sits in siloed systems,” said Leigh Anderson, Informatics & Technology Services (ITS) Chief Operating Officer, Premier. “The portal is designed to allow manufacturers and distributors access to all contract pricing information in one place. This work supports Premier’s efforts to implement data transparency and connectivity in the industry, and particularly in the procurement process, enabling more efficient and effective care.”
Contract price misalignment results in pricing errors throughout the supply chain, which require manual intervention, adding unnecessary costs to the process. This is largely due to the fact that eligibility and agreed-upon contract prices often take 30-45 days to be received and then loaded into the respective systems, further resulting in costly price exceptions. The enhanced Collaboration Portal includes an advanced account lookup service for the manufacturer that provides a holistic view of all of the locations that are included in the contract at time of execution. By linking the distributor, GPO and manufacturers’ view of the customer before the letter of commitment (LOC) is executed, GHX can help the industry reduce disputes in the chargeback and rebate process, and help ensure the hospital receives the correct price for all their facilities.
"Gore is excited to successfully partner with Premier through the enhanced GHX Collaboration Portal pilot,” said Gene Tierney, North American Corporate Accounts, W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. “Collaboration Portal is flexible enough to serve providers, contracting groups, and suppliers at the same time. Because GPO memberships are in a constant state of change, there is a huge need for a simple agreement declaration tool to ensure accurate contract participation. GHX's Collaboration Portal is a huge step forward."
Premier, a leading healthcare improvement company that unites an alliance of approximately 3,600 U.S. hospitals and 120,000 other sites, partnered with GHX to help its members synchronize contracts with their manufacturers and distributors faster, more cost effectively and with greater price accuracy. W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. and AngioDynamics, Inc. are the first manufacturers to go live with Collaboration Portal and Premier.
"Solving price alignment is critical for our industry, and we are pleased to work with Premier to enhance Collaboration Portal and join other GPOs who have embraced this industry solution," said Bruce Johnson, president and CEO, GHX. "With Collaboration Portal, we are addressing the root issues around price alignment, specifically those challenges related to customer identification, communication among parties and timely loading of accurate pricing for all constituents. GHX’s unique position connecting organizations – including suppliers, providers, GPOs and distributors – creates an opportunity for the entire healthcare supply chain to work together toward reducing contract price misalignment that result in pricing errors."
About GHX
Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) drives costs out of healthcare with cloud-based supply chain management technology and services in order to help enable better patient care and savings by maximizing automation, efficiency, and accuracy of business processes. GHX offers healthcare providers and suppliers an open and neutral electronic trading exchange that delivers procurement and accounts payable automation, contract and inventory management, vendor credentialing and management, business intelligence, and other supply chain-related tools and services. For more information, visit www.ghx.com and The Healthcare Hub.