IT leader finds big savings and new opportunities by saying 'yes' to printer oversight
Say the word ‘photocopier,’ and most IT leaders have visions of skilled workers wasting time undoing paper jams. But for Karl Collins, vice president of technical services and infrastructure at SavaSeniorCare, IT’s newfound ownership of enterprise-wide photocopiers has yielded $739,000 annual savings and increased visibility among executives.
Most IT leaders cringe at the word “photocopier.” They have visions of highly skilled workers wasting time changing toner cartridges and undoing paper jams. But for Karl Collins, vice president of technical services and infrastructure at SavaSeniorCare Administrative Services, IT’s newfound ownership of enterprise-wide photocopiers has resulted in $739,000 annual savings and increased visibility among executives.
Karl Collins
“Nursing homes run on paper charts as everything has to be documented and recorded,” Collins says. “In addition, Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies all require a tremendous amount of documentation for billing and claim reimbursements.”
Nowhere was this more evident than across the 182 affiliated nursing facilities located in 19 states supported by SavaSeniorCare IT Services. Administrators, nurses and other workers had to print, scan and fax medical records, billing information and claims forms back and forth with headquarters and then out to insurance companies. In many instances, due to time limits for submissions, employees would have to overnight claims packages, adding to a monthly shipping bill that was already in the tens of thousands.
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As is common in the insurance world, many claims are denied when they’re first submitted — which means lots of resubmissions. “The turnaround time to resubmit is short and if you miss it, you wind up providing the care for free,” Collins says. He adds that the average denial rebuttal package comprises 70 pages.
Complicating matters were the more than 70 copier models that facilities managed. “Each location would choose its own vendor, which left [the purchasing department] to manage almost a dozen vendors and accounts payable to process more than 400 lease invoices each month,” Collins says.
For years, users approached IT to network their copiers and tap into the functionality that the vendors had promised. But with so many different models in play, and a lack of compatible tools or interfaces, Collins and his team were unable to respond. “There was no way we could build a server infrastructure that would satisfy all those different machines,” he says.
Collins decided to launch an “Easter egg hunt,” where he finds a potential payoff that would grab attention. In this case, he started by asking accounts payable to look through the copier leasing invoices. The price tag of $1.76 million annually seemed unusually high, especially since most employees were only using a tiny fraction of the copiers’ functionality.
To make a dent in that cost, IT would have to streamline the technology. After settling on one vendor and two models that would address most of the organization’s needs, locations swapped out their hodgepodge of copier technology.
To convince users to part with their technology, Collins explained that he’d be able to network their copiers together and provide scan-to-email functionality – a proposition that most embraced.
Standardizing copier technology from 10 vendors to 1, IT reduced annual leasing costs from $1.76 million to $1.03 million – a more than 40% savings. With fewer leasing invoices to manage (1 vs. 400), purchasing, which handles contracts, and accounts payable, which handles vendor payments, also had wins by gaining back employee time.
Beyond the basics
While those bottom-line wins were impressive, they didn’t justify IT involvement in the project and continued oversight. So Collins focused in on the rewards that could be reaped from a network of copiers and servers.
The most obvious target was the claims package process. IT installed access to the Lotus Notes email directory on each copier as well as file queues. Instead of printing out reams of paper to be faxed or shipped overnight, users could simply pick a person or department and scan in the necessary files to email or FTP to them. Not only did this speed document delivery, but improved the claims process workflow.
For instance, administrators at each nursing home now use the copier’s capabilities to drop all the necessary documentation for a denial package into a headquarters claims queue via FTP.
Though Collins doesn’t have exact numbers on how this has impacted shipping costs, there has been an overall decrease in the $40,000 monthly bill. In addition, because documents are sent directly from the copier (free vs. being printed out at a cost of $0.02 per page), copier costs such as toner and paper have decreased.
The new workflow is also benefitting the company’s ability to get reimbursed. Workers now have more time to gather information for denials and a way to track the status of documents already submitted.
Perhaps an even larger benefit than cost has been the tighter control over security and privacy required in healthcare today. Users only can send documents to approved recipients, reducing the likelihood of data leakage. All data on the copier’s hard drive is encrypted as well.
Branching out
Since its success with basic claims submissions, IT has extended the copiers’ reach to human resources, workman’s compensation, managed care admissions and more. The copiers integrate with corporate forms for tracking course attendance, flu shot administration and background checks, eliminating PeopleSoft data entry. Bringing a new queue, set of forms or process online is simple because the copiers are networked and are updated in real time. If users want to add a new process, they call the IT help desk.
As the popularity of the networked copiers grows, the company has experienced a reduction in the amount of files needed to be stored on-site and off-site. In fact its shared services office reduced the seven rooms it had reserved for filing down to one, a 77% decrease in the space needed for document retention. Eventually the organization also should see a drop in its off-site document storage and shredding costs, as there will be less paper to manage.
Collins says he knew the project was a success when the mailroom manager suggested that credit card receipts, which employees were overnighting, be scanned and sent to accounting via the copiers instead.
With the copiers humming along and users putting more workflow processes online, Collins is on the hunt for a new project.
He identifies potential “Easter eggs” by the messiness of the situation. “How much variation is there in technology? How little control is there currently? Is there an opportunity for centralization? And is there a way to get the costs down?” He adds that he never assesses these situations from a purely IT perspective, but the effect it will have on the organization as a whole.
“We started the workflow improvements as a grassroots effort, and the successes spread by word of mouth,” he says. “Adoption only works when users ask for implementation and they understand the value. Failure comes when you push technology where it’s not appreciated.”
As far as worrying about his team getting bogged down with ink change requests? Delivery of toner and supplies is now automated.
Gittlen is a free-lance business and technology journalist in the greater Boston area. Email her at sgittlen@verizon.net.
