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Fletcher Allen Healthcare is both a community hospital and, in partnership with the University of Vermont, the state’s academic medical center. In its community hospital role, Fletcher Allen serves approximately 150,000 residents in Chittenden and Grand Isle counties and provides primary care services at nine Vermont sites. As a regional referral center, Fletcher Allen provides advanced-level care to a population of one million people throughout Vermont and northern New York.

Fletcher Allen has been a MedAssets client for nearly two decades. They have utilized MedAssets’ Alliance® Contract Management solution to identify the millions of dollars being lost due to weak contract management capabilities and the lack of a robust contract management tool.

Fletcher Allen Healthcare selected MedAssets’ Alliance Contract Management solution to improve management of their revenue cycle activities, to help drive better management decisions and to turn contracts into effective management and negotiating tools.

By utilizing MedAssets’ Alliance Contract Management solution, Fletcher Allen hoped to identify and collect underpayments from payors, identify discrepancies between contract terms and actual payor payments, renegotiate future contracts more favorably using variance project findings, and ultimately use this information to identify and streamline future organization processes.

Throughout the years, MedAssets’ Alliance Decision Support solution has repeatedly yielded ROI (return on investment) for Fletcher Allen. In fiscal year 2008, Fletcher Allen identified $12 million in client ROI through their use of the Alliance Contract Management solution.

Fletcher Allen’s Patient Financial Services Department identified and collected in excess of $3.7 million in underpayments in fiscal year 2008 by utilizing the variance reports generated by the Alliance Contract Management tool.

Through the review of the variance reports, trends were identified and subsequently used for contract negotiations. This area originally had been staffed with 2 FTEs for fiscal year 2008. However, based upon the positive returns that
have been generated by the department, they will increase to 3 FTEs for fiscal year 2009.

In addition, the Finance Department utilized data from MedAssets’ Alliance Contract Management solution to successfully renegotiate a contract with one of their largest payors. This renegotiation resulted in a 7.3% increase in revenue, effective November 2008, equaling $8.3 million in new cash flow.