Case Study: St. Joseph’s/Candler
About the Client
St. Joseph’s/Candler (SJ/C) is a 714-bed not-for-profit health system serving 33 counties in Southeast Georgia and three in the South Carolina Low Country, and is the largest and only faith-based institution in the region. Its network includes several centers of excellence for a variety of disease specialties. SJ/C chose Healthfuse to create value by benchmarking solutions and processes against industry best practice, renegotiate vendor contracts, improve vendor performance, and reduce costs.
We engaged Healthfuse over 5 years ago, and they are still driving value. They’ve provided us with a level of vendor transparency we couldn’t have achieved ourselves. We’ve achieved a 9:1 ROI through this fantastic partnership!
Greg Schaack, Chief Financial Officer
St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System
Challenge
Increasing patient financial responsibility had taken its toll on SJ/C in the form of reduced reimbursements and the threat of margin erosion. In an effort to curtail the impact, the system’s finance committee mandated deep cost cuts, placed a temporary hold on bonuses, and chose not to fill vacant positions. There could be no tolerance for underperforming vendors, nor less than favorable contract terms. SJ/C needed a more effective vendor management strategy. Several vendor contracts would be up for renewal within the year and SJ/C knew they needed help renegotiating terms to deliver optimal ROI.
Solution
SJ/C engaged Healthfuse to act as expert vendor managers advisors within their revenue cycle team, with the goal of improving visibility, maintaining oversight, and reducing costs. As part of the partnership, Healthfuse leveraged its VendorMetrics platform to objectively evaluate the true value of existing vendor relationships, identify compliance issues and implement compliance monitoring, and improve vendor performance.
Results
With Healthfuse, SJ/C was able to increase visibility into vendor performance and costs, proactively address compliance issues and ensure all accounts were being worked for optimal collections. SJ/C also was able to streamline issue resolution to quickly mitigate potential impact on revenue.
