Oregon Health Authority Gains Contract Visibility and Speed with DocuSign CLM

Created in 2009, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is charged with increasing access to affordable, high-quality healthcare to all Oregonians. The multitude of initiatives and programs coordinated by the Oregon Health Authority, including Behavioral Health Services, requires processing a constant stream of complex contracts—covering everything from provider agreements with individual clinicians to massive contracts with statewide coordinated care organizations. Approving and filing these agreements involves a network of processes that reach beyond OHA’s boundaries and into other state agencies.

When COVID-19 struck, it not only presented a major public health crisis for OHA to handle; paper-driven processes presented some logistical challenges for employees who were forced to work from home. Pressed for a rapid solution, OHA’s Director of Business Operations Mick Mitchell turned to DocuSign CLM. “We researched some competitive solutions, but we didn't see the level of flexibility we needed or the level of trust DocuSign is known for.”

With CLM, OHA accelerated cycle times for behavioral health contracts while improving visibility and management across the board.

Getting up and running quickly with DocuSign Customer Success 

With the heightened urgency of the pandemic, Mitchell tapped the expertise of the Professional Services team to implement CLM as rapidly as possible. As a large organization with complex processes and unique requirements, Mitchell was impressed by the team’s ability to deliver a solution that suits their needs. “They did some pretty quick work around the heavy lifts we asked for—and they were able to meet the needs of our timelines,” he said. 

The added technical expertise proved critical in making the most out of OHA’s CLM implementation, and perhaps more importantly, made the transition to DocuSign seamless for the business. “Their overall technical know-how around solution design and product capabilities for us was hands-down what I would call a significant win for everybody,” Mitchell described. “One of our partners needed us to adjust a workflow to add a different group into the approvals process, and the team helped accelerate workflow redesign effectively.” 

In addition to the technical help, OHA also used DocuSign Professional Services to empower end users with technical knowledge from DocuSign University. With a combination of hands-on solution knowledge transfer, Admin enablement and self-paced courses, OHA was able to enable a few of its own team members to become power users so they could train new end users on the DocuSign platform. 

Cutting months-long processes down to days

Previously, OHA’s behavioral health contracts involved a lot of emailing, a lot of printing—and a lot of time. First, staff members would exchange numerous emails and printed documents with the authority’s Contracts Team as the two groups iteratively worked out initial terms of a contract. Next, the Contracts Team prepared 118 forms and other documents for another back-and-forth phase, this time with the Office of Contracts and Procurement (OC&P), a separate state agency. After more administrative work, OC&P would email the contract packet to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for a legal sufficiency review. Finally, OC&P would send the DOJ-approved contract to both the vendor and an OHA-authorized signer for a wet signature. “Average time from when a new contract was requested to its execution was over 90 days,” said Mitchell. “When we had solicitations, those were even longer—sometimes 200-300 days.”

Moving to DocuSign CLM completely transformed the process. With a single click, users can generate any of over 23 forms that are frequently used in contract approval. Using DocuSign templates has led to a major reduction in errors while saving both time and effort in the contract approval process. “With the automated workflows, we're anticipating anywhere up to 80% gain in efficiencies,” Mitchell said. Just after launching CLM, some new contracts were completed in less than six days. Next, the team is expanding CLM to Medicaid contracts. “We're really trying to get this under one management system.”

With the CLM expansion, OHA has engaged DocuSign’s CLM Boost services team to act as its technical and workflow support specialists to ensure that if any problem should arise, the team has the extra support it needs from DocuSign. 

Gaining transparency in previously opaque processes

Another major win in OHA’s DocuSign transition was getting a holistic view of the approvals process. “Anybody putting in a request can know where their request is at any time, and for us, that was a huge gain for our program folks,” said Mitchell. But beyond the benefits afforded to rank and file staff, the newfound visibility provides even greater strategic benefits to Mitchell’s management team in their endless pursuit of quality throughout the contract lifecycle. “Task tracking and dashboards are going to be immensely helpful for us to look for exceptions that might have occurred in the system and restore those back to normal,” he said.