AmerisourceBergen partners with Chronicled to enhance charge-back accuracy
AmerisourceBergen is partnering with Chronicled, the administrator of the MediLedger Network, to leverage a new blockchain-powered solution designed to enhance pharmaceutical charge-back accuracy and significantly reduce charge-back rejections.
The blockchain solution is expected to allow AmerisourceBergen to streamline and optimize the complex process of pharmaceutical charge-backs while creating greater connectivity for its suppliers and customers. Over the past three years, AmerisourceBergen has collaborated closely with Chronicled to design and pilot the technology for commercial use.
Chronicled provides a shared, decentralized infrastructure that offers real-time visibility and contract updates to significantly reduce charge-back disputes and improve pricing accuracy. The blockchain-powered solution effectively enforces the accuracy and integrity of charge-backs submitted across AmerisourceBergen’s pharmaceutical supply chain.
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“At AmerisourceBergen, it’s our responsibility to develop and leverage innovative solutions that create seamless and efficient experiences for our customers and the patients they serve every day,” said Dina Barton, vice president of contracts and charge-backs at AmerisourceBergen. “This wouldn’t be possible without trusted partnerships across the supply chain. Being a part of the MediLedger Network and deploying this type of blockchain technology is a crucial step forward in AmerisourceBergen’s ongoing digital transformation journey.”
Charge-back (pricing) errors can occur for many reasons, but always result in manual processing, duplicate effort and back-and-forth communication between trading partners to resolve them. Suppliers, wholesalers and GPOs are constantly looking for ways to reduce errors, minimize charge-back disputes and streamline this process, Chronicled said.
The Contracts & Chargebacks solution on the MediLedger Network will help AmerisourceBergen provide its partner suppliers and GPOs a single source of truth for GPO membership, customer identifier data and contract pricing data that stays aligned between trading partners on the network. The network itself uses this aligned reference data to enforce charge-back accuracy. Blockchain technology and increased collaboration across the industry are essential in driving efficiencies, reducing costly errors and significantly improving the charge-back process, the company said.
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"We are excited and thrilled to have AmerisourceBergen join the MediLedger Network," said Susanne Somerville, CEO of Chronicled. "We share AmerisourceBergen’s commitment to innovation and driving efficiencies across the industry, and look forward to supporting their partners joining the network.”