Business Office Committee

The Stratum Business Office Committee is composed of Business Office management staff from each Stratum Shareholder site. The Committee develops shared Business Office services and selects preferred vendors. A member of Stratum's executive team serves as the project manager to facilitate the research and development and coordinate projects and committee activities. The Committee has successfully leveraged and negotiated arrangements and gained significant cost savings. Current projects encompass:

Mail Statements. Relay Health provides customized laser mail statements. The contract extends significant savings and performance guarantees for mail statement services.

Collection Agency Services. H&R Accounts and J.C. Christensen are the preferred collection agencies that offer precollect, primary and secondary collection services and legal placements.

Coding Resources & Products. Stratum has arrangements with Ingenix for practice enhancement products such as ClaimsManager and MDR and coding resources such as Encoder Pro and coding publications.

Merchant Credit Card Services. Heartland Payment Services is the preferred credit card vendor that offers competitive rates on merchant services.

EDI/Claims Clearinghouse. Relay Health is the preferred electronic transaction vendor that provides competitive rates for a variety of electronic transactions.

Proactive Patient Outreach. Stratum has a preferred agreement with Phytel for proactive patient recall and outreach services.

Contract Management Services. MPV is the preferred provider for contract management services.

Best Practices Project. Benchmarking projects such as the A/R Benchmark Survey have aided in the identification of best practices, opportunities for improvement, and cost savings. Examples include policies for centralized check-in and standardized credit and collections.

Fee Survey. An annual, blinded fee survey is conducted to compare fees and frequencies for selected services and procedures.

For additional information on Business Office initiatives, please contact Martha Baddour, Executive Director of Medical Enterprises, 1/800-771-6694, or E-Mail:
martha.baddour@stratummed.com.