The Vendor Feature in the MVI BA is Worth Millions to Your Organization

In the Benchmarking Application (BA) Version 15, there are 15 categories of vendors that tell you the two main things you want to know about vendors when making selections:

• How much does it cost?
• Are users happy with the vendor?

Vendors are critical to an organization. They represent YOU! They are part of your vow or promise. A business is a promise. When you don’t do what you say (a service failure), it is a lie or an exaggeration; and both reflect poorly upon your Integrity, which harms your reputation. So vendor selections should be carefully considered. 

Vendors have to be held to Standards. Each vendor should be provided the Standards you expect regarding timing, cost and quality or the manner with which the service is provided. These specifications are essential. But like other things, most organizations don’t demand high Standards or even give vendors the specifications of work. You have to actually sit down and define your vendor Standards. Of course, you want your vendors to already be doing what you need so that they don’t have to break their system (Non-Standard performance) to conform to you. Non-Standard BREAKS systems.

The Benchmarking Application (BA) Version 15 has easy-to-see vendor graphs that indicate Market Share and Overall Satisfaction scores on a 1-10 scale (1 being horrid and 10 being outstanding!). Vendor Costs are reflected in the normal BA reports as often a vendor’s costs and data-of-interest can be in multiple places. EMRs are a good example. When querying EMRs, you are not only interested in the cost of the product and licenses/support fees, but also how long the median visit times are for clinicians as well as other things. Thus, each time you query the database for a vendor, you get ALL of the data points as there are relationships between data points that are not always obvious.

What if a Vendor is NOT listed in the MVI Benchmarking System?

IF a vendor is not in our system, I think it should be of concern. It could mean that they have little market share and therefore may not have much expertise or experience or they just might be new or are pickier about their clients. Popularity is often overrated!  OR it could mean that they are ashamed of the “actual performance” of Hospices using their services. The MVI Benchmarking Application cuts through marketing hype and gives clients objective cost/operational data as well as subjective insight based on users’ overall level of satisfaction. Though it is NOT optional for vendors to not be listed, we have honored one because of the “hassle-factor” for the time-being. There will always be low-integrity/unconfident vendors (“Andrew, the numbers can’t be right, because we are a great vendor!”). The point is that MVI clients are paying for this information. It is what you hired us to do. It is proprietary information that comes directly from client General Ledgers and self-reported perception of vendors, which when aggregated, becomes extraordinarily meaningful and useful when making vendor selections. All vendors are graded using the same exact methodology and without human intervention. If a vendor is NOT in the system, this tells you something… With this said, an outlier Hospice often will use vendors that have fewer clients but provide a higher level of service that fits within their proprietary Model’s Standards of quality and cost.

If a vendor is NOT listed in our system or if you simply want an update on the latest feedback we are seeing based on the hundreds of Hospice we serve, call me! Folks do it every day! I’ll tell you what I know. No BS… I have no agenda here… 

The Vendor Feature is Worth Millions to Your Organization

This feature in the system is worth MILLIONS for most organizations! The point is that you want to work with the BEST vendors! Over time, your organization will pay vendors millions of dollars. MVI is pretty much a rounding error in comparison regarding cost and gives Hospices access to the practices of the 90th percentile (if you are a Network client). However, your Pharmacy, DME, Medical Supplies, EMR, Insurances, Telecommunications and other normal vendor categories represent GI-NORMOUS dollars!   

With this said, sometimes Hospices need perspective of the VALUE that comes from the MVI Benchmarking and/or Network relationship. The type and level of detail in the MVI Benchmarking application is uncommon, not to mention the fact that you don’t have to do any extra work to extract the monthly data or manual input if you are using the application properly. You do not find this level of detail in other sectors of healthcare or business (we know this because we have hospital systems, home health organizations, nursing homes and others continually asking for it). Sometimes Hospices overlook this because they are so myopically focused on our Hospice movement and feel that the movement is not advanced in its data systems. This is not the case regarding benchmarking…we are ahead of the curve in this area.

Update your Vendors NOW!

If you are not using the latest version of the BA, go ahead and update now! Then rate your vendors so that this data appears in your system! You have to “give to get” in the system! 

Serving from a place of Love for all ~ Andrew