Why Your Hospital Can’t Afford To Pass On A Telecom Audit

Your wireless costs might increase because of COVID-19 – but they won’t if you follow these 3 steps.

TEM for HospitalsA telecom audit employs the knowledge of an auditor (or team of auditors) to complete a thorough search through all of your organization’s telecom and IT related bills in order to find billing errors and identify cost reduction opportunities. Audits can generally take place every 12-18 months, with some audits offering an ongoing review of telecom expenses each month for the following 12 months after initial hire. Audits are meticulous and non-intrusive, allowing business to go on as usual without disruption.

A standard telecom audit generally includes:

  • Expert review of every line item on your invoices
  • Thorough comparison of charges to contract and billing tariffs
  • Identification of any billing mistakes
  • Identification of under-used (or unused) services
  • Identification of any credits/refunds due from your carrier
  • Complete inventory of all lines, circuits, wireless devices and features across the enterprise
  • All services properly assigned to correct cost centers
  • Understanding of all existing contracts, what commitments are, and when terms expire
  • Development of a formal contract strategy
  • New contracts entered which level the playing field regarding terms and conditions
  • Thorough review of procurement policies for telecom-related orders (including disconnections)
  • Suggestions for procurement policy revisions to eliminate potential breakpoints
  • Blueprint for future vendor accountability reviews to ensure proactive management of services
  • Price points, correct billing, etc. so that corrections put into place stay correct moving forward
  • Negotiations for customizing telecom contracts

While the option to conduct an exhaustive, internal audit of your own is always on the table, many companies find that without a thorough understanding of every telecom related pricing point, plan, and add-on, the audit doesn’t work as expected. Many hours are invested only to produce underwhelming results. It serves an organization well to have an outside set of eyes with up-to-the-minute industry knowledge come in and review the infrastructure.

Running a hospital isn’t easy, and a telecommunications audit can be a time consuming and thorough undertaking that many employees are not prepared to take on.

BP-CTA-Art-of-RFP-IMG

[author_bio username=”Ken”  name=”yes”]

Stay up to date with ways you can save

More from PAG