As the entire healthcare industry continually searches for efficiencies to reduce supply chain costs, many important stakeholders are mandating standards to be adopted. The nation’s largest GPOs have mandated that their suppliers adopt the GLN and use it when they electronically communicate with them. The deadline for this mandate is December, 2010.

There are 3 primary challenges for suppliers to keep their customer master file continually updated and enumerated with the GLN.

The first big challenge is for suppliers that have contract pricing based on Class of Trade. For example, a supplier may offer a product to a hospital for a lower cost than a physician’s office -- even though both locations are part of the same GPO. It is almost always true that the supplier recognizes more or less classes of trade than their GPO partners. Keep in mind this same problem occurs for all GPOs as they do not all recognize the same classes of trade.

Another challenge is the suppliers past protocol for maintaining customer master files. Customers are often hard to find, and companies are reluctant to delete a customer file, but at some point inactive accounts need to be culled from the database.

The last challenge suppliers face when enumerating their customer master file to be GLN compliant is keeping the file regularly updated. Too often suppliers look at it as a one time cleaning of the file. Best practice proves that the initial project is necessary and then regularly scheduled updates are needed to keep the file valid, current and accurate.

When you use Axiom Account Integration Services to enumerate your customer master file you will have all of the challenges managed for you. We will work with you to understand your Class of Trade requirements, alert you of incorrect or inactive accounts and provide you with regular validation and updates.