By Craig Frost
In my last post, pharmacy professionals went on the record saying task-management functionality is a must-have for compliance management software. When pharmacy managers can automate the many manual tasks for proving evidence of compliance, they make gaining accreditations like ACHC and URAC far easier. Another must-have feature of compliance management software is license management functionality. Managers in healthcare and other industries echo this, specifically with regard to SectyrHub LicenseTrak® software.
“For anyone who’s considering LicenseTrak, I can say as a global user who oversees compliance this software puts licenses for pharmacies, pharmacists, DEAs, and other documents in one place and saves what would be weeks’ worth of work to track the same information in spreadsheets,” says a director of retail pharmacy operations for a Midwestern healthcare system.
A pharmacy not only has to prove its staff has valid licenses in place to dispense drugs but also must regularly validate licenses for payor contracts and accreditation programs. After ensuring quality and safety, appropriate reimbursement is among any pharmacy’s top priorities. Why risk validation by relying on a manual system that could easily miss something like a license renewal?
Many pharmacy managers find themselves struggling to keep track of which licenses are active and in good standing. Without license management functionality, they must check multiple sources for status and find themself scrambling to see upcoming tasks. Why spend valuable time sending emails to remind colleagues about due dates and hunting for information about licenses?
A growing battle to keep on top of professional and business licenses was the very situation MobilityWorks–a provider of wheelchair accessible vehicles–found itself facing not long ago.
“One of the first things I did upon becoming [compliance] director was to ask what system our professionals were using to maintain and renew the regulatory requirements to stay open for business,” says Erik Ingersoll, director of Risk & Compliance for MobilityWorks. “My team told me the system was a manual one, including notebooks and reams of lists and due dates.”
Soon after, MobilityWorks put in place compliance management software, with license management functionality, because Ingersoll’s team has to keep abreast of licenses issued by 35 states in which the company does business.
Regardless of the type of business, the right compliance management solution will offer a way to manage licenses, registrations, and certifications for facilities, staff, and contractors. With features like real-time dashboards and email notifications, a manager can schedule automated reminders, track due dates and expirations, and ensure nothing gets missed.
“There are local departments of motor vehicles, secretaries of state, and insurance agents just to name a few entities that we interact with to keep licenses and certificates on file and valid,” added Ingersoll. “With an automated process, we can quickly add categories that reflect the way our company does business. The automated process helped modernize our Risk & Compliance group.”
Staying open for business
Before implementing SectyrHub LicenseTrak compliance management software, the general manger for a MobilityWorks dealership frantically called Ingersoll late on a Friday night. There was a regulatory official at the dealership’s door because the dealer license had expired. The official noted the business could not reopen until the manager renewed the license. After a lot of scrambling, Ingersoll says he and his team narrowly averted a crisis.
The following year, with LicenseTrak in place, Ingersoll told us that he easily handled that dealership’s renewal. Before the dealership’s license expired, his team had an alert from LicenseTrak, renewed the dealer license, and sent documents to the appropriate authorities. Automating how MobilityWorks manages all its licenses enables managers to focus on clients without interruption. Next up, I will write about incident management, which is the third of four elements every compliance management software solution must offer.