Bill-only requests: a guide for vendor reps

What the hospital will ask you to submit

A request for each case, filed in the web app after the surgery. You can save a draft and finish it later.

• The surgery: date, hospital, department, cost center, surgeon and procedure.
• The case number and the medical record number, so the request can be matched to the hospital’s record of the case.
• Each product, picked from the hospital’s contract price list, with quantity, lot number and serial number. The price comes from the contract, so you do not type it.
• Anything not on the price list, entered separately with its catalog number, unit of measure and price. It is marked non-contract for the approver.
• Items that were wasted, used as a trial or explanted, marked as such.
• The construct price, when the contract has one, applied to the products it covers.

Catalog numbers are compared with dashes, dots, spaces and letter case ignored, so formatting does not matter. The letters and digits do.

Deadlines are set by each hospital

Each hospital decides how many days after surgery a request can arrive before it needs a written reason for being late, and after how many days it can no longer be submitted at all. The app applies those rules when you submit. A case number already on another active request is flagged as a possible duplicate. The hospital can also post its policy and messages for vendors inside the app.

What each status means

Draft

Saved, not yet submitted. Finish it when you have everything.

Pending approval

Submitted and checked against the contract and the hospital’s case record. An approver has it.

Rejected

Sent back to you to correct. See below.

Declined

Not approved as submitted. See below.

Approved

Accepted. It goes to the hospital’s purchasing system, its ERP, on the hospital’s schedule.

Pending PO

With the ERP, waiting for the purchase order number.

Complete

The purchase order number is on the request and has been emailed to you.

When a request is sent back

Sent back means the approver has returned the request to you to fix. It shows as Rejected and you are emailed. Open it, read the approver’s note, correct what the note asks and submit it again. You can reply with a note of your own.

Declined is different: the hospital has not approved the request. You are emailed. Read the notes on the request and talk to your hospital contact before you submit it again.

Notes are free text. Never type a patient’s name or other details into a note.

The purchase order number comes by email

You do not need to call for it. Approved requests go to the hospital’s ERP, and the ERP creates the purchase order. When the ERP sends the number back, the request completes and you are emailed the number. It also shows on the request. How long that takes depends on the hospital’s purchasing schedule.

Access comes through the hospital

There is no public sign-up. The hospital’s administrator creates your account, chooses which vendors and hospitals it covers, and can switch it off. A rep sees the requests they filed for those vendors and hospitals; a vendor manager sees every request for them. The hospital tells you where to sign in. It runs in a web browser, with nothing to install.

Who to contact

Questions about a request, a deadline, a price or your account go to the hospital, which sets the rules and makes every decision. Techinquest makes the software. If the web app itself will not load, or you cannot sign in after the hospital has confirmed your account, write to support@tech-inquest.com and name the hospital.