Vetting a new IT solution can be an extensive process, and one of the most important steps is calculating your return on the investment. With EverCheck, we’ve made it simple. Here is a step-by-step guide to calculating the value of automated license verification.
Step one: are you meeting the minimum standards for license verification?
The first step in calculating your return is to determine how much time your organization currently dedicates to license verification versus how much time it should dedicate.
It’s not enough to verify licenses only during the renewal period. Some changes in license status may affect a licensee’s eligibility to perform his or her job duties. These changes can happen suddenly, and licensing boards aren’t required to notify employers when they occur. Verifying licenses regularly minimizes the window that important changes go unnoticed.
Every organization has different needs and resources available to dedicate to this process, but at a minimum, organizations should be verifying once per month to avoid costly compliance penalties. Changes to look for include:
- Changes in license status
- Disciplinary sanctions
- License expirations
- Name changes
- Missing documentation
- Exclusions
Step two: how much time are you spending manually verifying licenses?
Think about this process as a whole rather than just about the time it takes you to verify with the board. Verification really requires pulling reports of soon-to-expire licenses, checking each license one by one with the state boards, recording changes, notifying managers and employees, and updating the employee records. Based on feedback we’ve received from clients, a fair estimate is that each manual license verification takes, on average, 5 minutes.
Now do the math:
[ # of licenses verified]
x [5 minutes per verification]
_________________________________
the number of minutes spent verifying all licenses per month
Divide your answer by 60 to determine the number of hours dedicated to manual license verification every month.
**Example: ABC Health System verifies 5,000 licenses per month.
5,000 licenses X 5 minutes per verification = 25,000 minutes per month
25,000 minutes per month / 60 =
417 hours per month
ABC Health System would need to spend 417 hours per month verifying licenses to be effective. That’s more hours than there are in a month!
Step three: how much is manual license verification costing you?
To answer this, it’s important to first think about opportunity costs. For many organizations, the responsibility of license verification falls with the HR team or with direct supervisors. These professionals have expertise and talents that can have a direct and lasting impact on your bottom line. So if they’re dedicating their time and resources to manual license verification, it’s taking away from more meaningful and productive initiatives they could be focusing on instead.
Let’s do the math:
[# of hours on license verification from step one]
x [hourly rate of professional verifying licenses]
__________________________________________________________
The amount spent per month on license verification
**Example: Back to ABC Health System. Let’s assume the average hourly rate for their employees conducting verifications is $20/hour. This example is for illustrative purposes only, and your figures will likely look different.
417 hours per month on manual license verification x $20/hour =
$8,340 per month on manual license verification, or $100,080 per year
ABC Health System is spending roughly $100,000 per year and hundreds of hours of their staff’s valuable time on manual license verification.
Step four: evaluating the cost of automated license verification
Daily Primary Source verification is the absolute best practice approach. Verifying licenses every day ensures that there’s never an instance where a change in license status goes unnoticed. But as we’ve seen from our calculations, daily manual license verification isn’t practical or cost-effective. Fortunately, fully-automated license verification services like EverCheck monitor the Primary Source daily and report important changes to you immediately.
EverCheck’s subscription-based solution is offered at $1.00 per licensed employee per month. Even if an employee has multiple licenses, you’re only paying per employee. We don’t charge for ongoing support, and there’s no long-term contract.
Let’s do the math:
[# of licensed employees]
x $1.00 per month
_______________________________
The total cost of automated license verification per month
**Example: Remember, ABC Health System had 5,000 licenses to verify. We’ll assume that those 5,000 licenses were held by 4,500 licensees (since some licensees will hold more than one license).
4,500 licensed employees X $1.00 per licensed employee per month =
$4,500 per month for automated license verification or $54,000 per year
Now, compare those numbers to your manual license verification number crunching. In our example, EverCheck provides a 54% cost savings over manual verifications for ABC Health System – with even more reliable compliance! And remember… that cost savings don’t include the opportunity costs or the other initiatives your staff now have the time to execute.
Step five: recognizing the value of the qualitative
EverCheck has been providing solutions to the healthcare HR space since 2005, and our years of experience have given us the insight to anticipate the needs of our clients. We’ve developed our software to be a comprehensive solution for license compliance and a true extension of your team. So in addition to automated license verification, EverCheck also:
- Interprets the raw data from the Primary Sources and supplies you with meaningful, actionable information, so you spend less time analyzing and more time resolving issues.
- Provides automated workflows, sends email notifications to remind staff and supervisors of renewal deadlines, notifies you of changes automatically by email, and allows task management from directly within the system.
- Integrates seamlessly with your current HRIS or system of record, so the information you have in your HRIS is as up-to-date as the Primary Source.
- Adapts to regulatory agencies' changing requirements and your organization's growing needs.
What would you do with more time on your hands and extra cash in the budget?
This post is a general way to calculate the value of switching your license verification from manual to automated. We’ve received feedback from current clients that they’ve been able to dedicate fewer resources to license verification and are able to redirect those resources to other meaningful initiatives. In fact, you can request a copy of our case study - just shoot us an email at hello@evercheck.com.
