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What's the first thing a patient does upon reaching a doctor's office? Or a new employee visiting Human Resources? Most likely it's sitting down with a clipboard and pen and filling out one or more forms.
Across Partners HealthCare, more than 800 types of forms are used-everything from patient intake, Medicare rights and health care proxy forms to advance directives, non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements. The cost for these forms amounts to $1.6 million each year.
As part of Partners' commitment to improving patient affordability by seeking savings and efficiencies while maintaining quality, a team determined that cost savings could be achieved by awarding a contract to a single vendor, rather than the two vendors Partners had been using. The team was led by Mark Faulkner, of Partners Materials Management, with support from a system-wide oversight committee.
"The vendors submitted bids for printing forms," Faulkner said. "We selected one of the incumbents and worked with them to negotiate a standardized pricing matrix. As part of the process, we also reviewed many forms and eliminated some-in particular those that we found were no longer being used."
The move to a single vendor with standardized pricing has reduced spending on printed forms by more than 8 percent, or $132,000 annually.
If you have cost-saving ideas, email patientaffordability@partners.org.