Slaying the Paperwork Dragon

Most of us would agree that paperwork is a pain.  For example, according to the IRS, American taxpayers spend an average of 11 hours each year preparing their tax return paperwork.[1]  Think that’s bad?  Imagine being an auto manufacturer submitting documentation for something called the Federal Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Standard.  According to the federal government, that process takes 8,354 hours.[2]  That’s the equivalent of four full-time employees working on nothing but “Federal Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Standard” paperwork for an entire year!

The healthcare community is facing its own paperwork problem.  A 2016 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that for every hour physicians were seeing patients, they were spending nearly two additional hours on paperwork.[3]  Even when in the examination room with patients, doctors were spending only 53% of the time talking to or examining their patients and 37% of the time doing... you guessed it... paperwork.  A more recent report similarly found a “startling increase” in administrative tasks, with more than a third of physicians spending 20 or more hours per week on paperwork.[4] 

Here at IMS, we understand that our customers are seeking ways to slay the paperwork dragon.  Although we can’t do your taxes, we can streamline your contracting process through our Master Sales and Services Agreement (MSSA) program.  Our MSSA program covers everything from single-product purchases to complex system installations, and provides numerous customer benefits, whether you’re a single facility or a multi-hospital IDN:

• A single Master Agreement governing all purchases for all covered facilities, eliminating the need for legal review of single purchase agreements
• Statements of Work (SOW) templates for all IMS products and services, the only paperwork required for even complex system purchases
• Reduce the number of suppliers, creating less paperwork and administration time
• Provides a vehicle to standardize products and services across your organization to reduce the number of suppliers and products, requiring less paperwork and administration time to manage
• Evergreen auto-renewal, helping you avoid redundant contract reviews, as you are “one and done”

Ready to take the next step toward reducing paperwork?  Contact us to learn more about how our MSSA program can help you make it all work together in healthcare.