Making Intelligent Vendor Decisions: Insights from Alliance VMI project

Thursday, 7/29/2021
1:00 PM CT – 2:00 PM CT (60 minutes)

The Alliance initiated a new phase in our vendor management, accountability, performance, and contracting efforts. This session updates you on our progress and provides VALUABLE insights regarding vendor management decisions for member health plans. We have been missing opportunities to help our members be more effective, more informed buyers of services because we don’t have current information on vendor performance and member buying intentions. Our vision is to develop a tool to aid our members with purchasing and vendor management efforts.

Imagine a database at your fingertips for any outsourced service or function you are evaluating. In a few clicks, you can find ten different vendors other Alliance members are using to include in your research. You would also be able to access their reported level of satisfaction and the contact information of someone in the plan you can talk to for more background information. You will also be able to see plans that may also be shopping for similar solutions. We believe there are opportunities to aggregate both assessment/diligence costs and possibly vendor contracting for clusters of HPA members aligned in time and need.  

As a trusted third-party with individual confidentiality agreements in place with each member, the Alliance collects additional information from members on total spend that cannot be shared member-to-member. This information will help the Alliance identify priorities for our GPO efforts and engage and educate service providers on why they should focus on the needs of our members.

Your participation is essential!
To make this a robust database of information, all Alliance members are strongly encouraged to participate in this data collection effort. Through your commitment and participation, we will be able to:

• Provide you a detailed view of the solutions other members are using and whom you can reach out to when researching solutions.
• Identify members with similar purchasing cycles, bring them together in purchasing “clusters,” leverage common advisors and RFP/evaluation processes, and secure more favorable agreements.
• Enhance and diversify the existing GPO portfolio of agreements.
• Negotiate better contracts on behalf of you, our members.
• Implement more active vendor accountability programs.
• And more!

Audience

This session is designed for health plan financial and vendor management teams. Those involved in vendor decision relating to their operational department will also find the session valuable.

Ask your peers a question or share a resource anytime through the Alliance discussion forum

You can visit the discussion forum and post a question anytime. It's only available to Alliance members, so your question is private and secure. When submitting a question, you can select which topics your question is related to. Individuals who have indicated in their Alliance profile they are interested in those topics and are opted in to discussion forum emails will receive your question. You can also add an attachment to your question or reply, making this tool another great resource for sharing best practices with your peers.

Start a discussion

Other recommended events

Register now for these upcoming events

• Discuss strategies DSNP plans may have for engaging members to complete an HRA | Braindate | 04/30/2024
• Adding SSBCI for Grocery Card benefit in CY2025 | Braindate | 04/30/2024
• Transforming Healthcare Analytics: Strategies & Tools for Actionable Insights and Improved Outcomes | Vendor Spotlight | 05/01/2024

View the presentation materials from these recent events

• Mastering Integrated Payments + Communications | Vendor Spotlight | 04/23/2024
• Machine Readable File and Treatment Cost Calculator Compliance | Braindate | 04/22/2024
• Transforming Chronic GI Care with SonarMD | Vendor Spotlight | 04/17/2024