Healthcare provider streamlines CLM and auditing with AI.

Northern Inyo Healthcare District's (NIHD) compliance officer (CO), who is responsible for all contracts and outsourced legal spend, faced challenges managing contracts across the District’s 20-year-old document repository.

For a hospital like NIHD, every minute wasted and dollar spent is time and money that could be used to improve patient outcomes. The CO knew there had to be a better way to manage and analyze contracts so the lean team could make better use of their resources, easily demonstrate compliance with critical requirements, and empower the broader organization to manage budgets and surface opportunities to improve expenditures.

Choosing the right partner via a proof of concept.

The CO’s contract lifecycle management research led to two leading solutions: Workday Contract Lifecycle Management, powered by Evisort AI, and a healthcare-specific operations software provider. Intent on finding a provider that delivered on its promises, the CO insisted on a live proof of concept from each.

“We uploaded 26 of our least decipherable documents—like the 1948 Board Resolution that established our district—and I watched Workday’s AI process them in seconds, populating data for common terms and key provisions,” the CO said. “We invited our accounting and finance partners for a followup demo, and they were equally impressed.”

With that validation, NIHD was confident that Evisort (a Workday company) would best serve their needs. “It was clear that our savings from using Workday would well exceed the cost of the software, which made it easy to build a compelling business case with our CFO,” said the CO.

Identifying potential cost savings via clear accountability.

NIHD set up Workday to align with its internal reporting and budgeting structure so that stakeholders can easily find the contracts they are responsible for and estimate potential savings or increasing costs. “We used Workday’s AI to create a field for all of the cost centers—like radiology or cardiology—that appear in our general ledger, so now every contract has a cost center and a person responsible. This lets us more accurately forecast spend to make better use of every dollar,” the CO explained.

Reclaiming hundreds of hours with streamlined contract review.

Since implementing Workday, NIHD has built six contract workflows for amendments, medical staff services, 1099 physician agreements, business associate agreements (BAAs), termination agreements, and miscellaneous contracts. “Our stakeholders love Workday’s easy intake form, and I love that my email inbox receives far fewer contract inquiries. With Workday, I’m saving at least an hour every day on contract-related work. Now, we can turn a contract around in just a few hours— instead of a few days—to operate faster and with greater confidence,” the CO said.

Avoiding overpayments for physician reimbursement.

As a remote hospital, NIHD has several specialist physicians who perform services just a few days per month. These physicians are paid for each travel day and reimbursed for certain travel expenses. “Previously, we’d review physician payment contracts as best we could, but it would take a lot of time to ensure our providers were not reimbursed over the contractual limits,” said the CO. “Everything adds up when you’re in a critical financial position. Now, with Workday, we can cross-reference physicians’ expenses with their contractual entitlements to make sure we don’t pay above our obligations.”

Avoiding expensive settlements through better contract management.

With Workday, the NIHD team is now proactively managing contracts and is never surprised by an auto-renewal or termination date. “We’ve appreciated a significant amount of savings by reviewing all contracts in Workday to make sure they are terminated appropriately,” said the CO. “Previously, our district has had to pay substantial sums to settle termination disputes. Now, with Workday’s AI, we can avoid termination disputes altogether.”

Boosting board confidence via increased visibility.

Each quarter, the CO is required to report directly to the hospital’s board of directors on a wide range of compliance matters, including audits, privacy investigations, vendor diversity, and the status of contracts across the organization. “Not only am I now fully confident in the quality of our contract data, I also have a dashboard in Workday that shows all of the upcoming expiration dates, renewal terms, counterparties we have the most contracts with, which cost centers have the most contracts, and more,” the CO said. “I literally print the Workday contract dashboard and put it into my board report.”

Simplifying preparation for compulsory audits.

Previously, showing compliance with accounting principles set forth by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 87 (lease classification) required tedious manual search for contracts by filename. With Workday customizable AI, NIHD has streamlined audit preparation. Today, the accounting team can run a simple search to surface contracts that require reporting under GASB 87 for external financial audits without having to manually comb through agreements. This helps NIHD avoid any possibility of lower bond agency ratings, increased borrowing costs, or loss of public confidence.

Partnering for optimal results.

With Workday, NIHD is empowered to manage its contracts and spend proactively to best serve its community. “Workday helps NIHD operate with confidence. The customer success team truly partners with you to make sure you’re successful, and the Academy, which is a great training resource, is just as user-friendly as the platform itself,” reflected the CO. “We are excited about our continued partnership.”