Late Charges from Fairview

[Jerian Lind]

For all those that deal with Fairview on clinical trials:  I know it's not uncommon to have Fairview assess charges in a not-so-timely fashion for clinical trials.  I have one trial that we've kept fairly up to date as far as Fairview invoices and payments go.  Recently, I was given an invoice where dispensing charges were assessed for dates between 3 and 5 years ago.  Now, we had paid the IDS for those months; we were just never charged the dispensing fees (dispensing varies by subject, so I have no way of knowing when a dispensing fee will be incurred).  I asked them why the charges were coming about so late and got the following response:

"Many of our studies that are dispensed from other locations were charged spotty at best in the past. Periodically I go through a study and do an audit on all the charges. Sometimes I find dispensings that were never billed sometimes I find items that were over charged and I credit the study. These additional charges were dispensings that were never charged. If you want I can go back over it to double check. I use the EPIC HAR’s to double check what was charged and I use our accountability logs to see if they match."

The study is still open and it is fixed price, but I'm wondering if anyone else has had this come up and how they've addressed it.  I was able to verify that the subjects they list were enrolled and a visit occurred on those dates, but I'm still wondering if anyone does anything more when Fairview charges so late.

[Anne Mockovak]

It's true that Fairview has a less than desirable billing system.  However, since Fairview provided the service as requested and the trial is still open, I would pay the invoices. 

You can use the Fairview Accounts Payable report in the "EFS Reference Documents" of the AHC Finance tools. 

http://finance.ahc.umn.edu/

This is really helpful to verify that you have received all the invoices on a project. Also, if you know visits have occurred and you don't see invoices,  you can contact the billing staff.  The contact information can be accessed through the "support links" on the Oncore login page.  I've also attached it.