Because the average healthcare organization works with multiple locum tenens staffing agencies, they receive numerous invoices from each separate agency for different costs. Tracking and verifying so many different invoices manually costs both time and money.
“Every single invoice you pay as an organization costs money. Even if you’re not sending checks anymore and it’s done through ACH, it still costs internal and external dollars,” says Thomas Lanvers, senior vice president of business development and customer success at Locumsmart. “You could have 100 invoices per month, so the complexity is enormous, but there are also hard costs associated with that.”
Additionally, many healthcare organizations don’t have a finance person dedicated to processing locum tenens invoices, which means a staff member must filter them and forward emails to the finance team to pay them. The extra step of forwarding numerous invoices — and the time to explain the locum tenens process to the finance team — can be frustrating and time-consuming.
What is consolidated billing for locum tenens?
Consolidated billing means your locum tenens vendor management system (VMS) automatically does all the work for you, taking the invoices your organization receives from the different locum tenens agencies you work with and combining them into one easy-to-pay bill. A robust system will even allow you to customize every setting. So, you can choose how often you want to consolidate bills, how often you want to make a payment, how much you’ll authorize, and whether you want to issue payment manually or automatically. This means:- Less administrative work
- One consolidated bill for easy payment
- More timely payments to vendors
- Cost savings
Don’t forget a compliance check
Consolidated billing sounds great, right? But it’s not enough on its own. One of the most time-consuming parts of the locum tenens invoice payment process is making sure the locum tenens agencies have billed you correctly. So, without a compliance check, you could end up paying the wrong amount and having to make costly corrections later. At the very least, your locum tenens VMS should run all agency invoices through a robust invoice compliance process that includes the following:- A review of providers’ timesheets to ensure the hours they bill are categorized correctly
- Confirm travel and lodging expenses are substantiated with receipts
- Ensure providers followed guidelines for including other travel expenses
- Verification of rates, time reported, and expense totals
- Check for duplicate invoices