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As the year winds down, employers are seeking ways to hold the line on rising health plan costs and improved outcomes in 2025. One area that shows promise despite often being overlooked is holding vendors accountable for helping the organization reach its goals.
Optimatum, a vendor management firm, recently reviewed more than 30 employer surveys conducted by leading consulting firms over a three-year period to help identify the role of vendor management in addressing employer-sponsored health plan challenges.
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“In our analysis, we concluded that there are a common set of initiatives employer-sponsored health plans use within their overall benefits plan strategy to combat their vendor and cost challenges,” said David Neikrug, CEO of Optimatum. “Vendor management is a strategic outsourcing option that remains severely underutilized and worth pursuing for greater alignment with an employer’s business objectives to achieve measurable results.”
A strong vendor management process involves mapping out and attaining operational efficiencies throughout the health care plan ecosystem; ensuring transparency in the sponsor and participant experience; and receiving regularly updated, accurate data, diagnostics, reporting and predictive modeling to inform decision making and planning.
“Ensuring that vendors are aligned with an organizations’ business goals and taking measures to enforce greater accountability from those relationships my help mitigate costs and improve outcomes form today’s employers,” the report said.
Optimatum recommends that employers ask themselves these questions as they seek greater accountability from vendors:
- Each year, do you provide your vendors with a thorough briefing of your overarching business objectives for your benefits program? Are your vendors in alignment with your stated objectives? Are they paying you lip service, or is this in writing?
- Do your vendor agreements include clear and tight articulation of key performance indicators? Do they reflect fulfillment of specific deliverables, product enhancements and metrics? Are they incentivized to meet certain deliverables?
- Are your vendors using scorecards and dashboard analytics that enable you to review success measures across your HR programs and identify future opportunities? Do these tools demonstrate that you are receiving optimal outcomes?
- Has your organization spent time focused on issuing requests for proposals to new vendors vs. extracting greater value from your existing vendors? If you work with many vendors, are you looking at the sum of all of your parts? Are there operational efficiencies you might be overlooking?
- Has your organization integrated operations across your vendor supply chain where appropriate?
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Alan Goforth
Alan Goforth is a freelance writer in suburban Kansas City. In addition to freelancing for several publications, he has written a dozen books about sports and other topics.
