When it comes to the procurement of significant quantities of medical supplies and equipment, the healthcare industry lags behind other industries in terms of payment digitization.
Despite suppliers’ preference for automated clearing house (ACH) and direct deposit payments, up to 85 percent of their customers still use checks or other paper-based payment methods, according to the “B2B Payments in Healthcare Tracker.”
Using outmoded payment methods often leads to errors and late payments, resulting in predictable problems between business partners. And the only way to alleviate their burden is through automation technology capable of automating the whole procurement process from beginning to end.
Offering contemporary remedies
In the business-to-business (B2B) payments ecosystem, there are increasing opportunities to innovate on top of existing and new payment rails for both buyers and suppliers. According to Trina Dutta, American Express’s vice president and general manager of B2B payments automation and global commercial services,
According to Dutta, offering modern, “consumerized and intuitive solutions” that are easy to set up and use on a daily basis would put accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) interactions closer together than ever before for solution providers like American Express.
Dutta projected that as AP-focused automation solutions become more widely employed, commercial cards and other electronic payment methods will see an increase in volume.
There is an increasing need to provide suppliers with visibility, efficient processing, and a simple way to close out their books for a range of payment methods and receipts.
Automation of the Procure-to-Pay Process
The procure-to-pay process, which involves digitizing requisitions, orders, receipts, and payments on a single platform, can aid in reducing paper consumption and managing electronic payments such as ACH debit and virtual credit cards from a hospital’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
Furthermore, automation can increase visibility in the procure-to-pay chain, allowing suppliers to more correctly predict payments and transmit on-demand payment information for AR reconciliation.
Automation lowers human mistakes and digitizes the whole procure-to-pay process, allowing invoices with exception issues to receive the care they require as soon as feasible. Artificial intelligence (AI), electronic data exchange (EDI), and robotic process automation are examples of these technologies (RPA).
