No matter the size of the organization, expense tracking is important. In healthcare, necessary spending adds up and leads to card program growth. This makes it even more important to gain clear insight into where money is going and how this impacts larger goals.
Expense tracking in healthcare, as with most industries, is defined as the level of awareness and clarity when it comes to understanding how money is spent. To take it a step further, this can involve comprehensive data analysis that traces funds from various sources. It’s also become more urgent: hospitals lost $48.4 billion in preventable revenue leakage in 2025 alone, a 25% jump from the year before, and improper payments remain the single largest source of revenue loss for healthcare payers, eating up roughly 10% of annual revenue at the average organization.
As a Purchasing Card (P-Card) manager or expense auditor, it’s important to ensure employees are complying with specific guidelines. In addition, expense tracking can support better decision-making and optimize costs. Below are six effective ways to generate cost savings with expense tracking in healthcare.
1. Use Cards Over Other Payment Methods
Sometimes it’s convenient to use cash, but for healthcare organizations, the most convenient way to make a payment and maintain expense tracking in healthcare is almost always with a card. This makes it easier to track the expense and review the data afterward. Having transaction history on hand each month will save you time and energy when trying to determine how much went where each month.
Additionally, card spend data can be used strategically to keep track of potential fraud or misuse. Transactions can be matched up against receipts to verify purchases. Refunds can also be tracked easily, along with whether specific contract suppliers were used. By using cards over other payment methods, healthcare companies can access greater spend visibility and more robust controls to identify wasteful spending and generate cost savings.
2. Outsource Cardholder Training
Expense audits will run much smoother when employees are provided with cardholder training and similar resources prior to receiving their card. Adequate training helps employees get clear on what approved purchases look like and will answer some common questions about card use.
It can also help prevent card misuse, split transactions, and non-compliant purchases from happening frequently. Employees won’t be able to say ‘I didn’t know’ when the proper level of cardholder training is provided upfront. Moreover, it’s also beneficial to offer refresher training sessions for existing cardholders at least once a year or as card program policy is updated.
On the flip side, creating cardholder programs and going through spend reports can be strenuous and extremely time-consuming. Working with companies such as Card Integrity can help to lighten your workload and create a simple, more concise way to analyze spend reports.
3. Clear Communication
Miscommunication or a total lack of communication is never good. Often, it can only lead to more confusion, mistakes and unnecessary financial loss. It’s crucial to set clear guidelines for employees as to what is and what isn’t acceptable to be purchased on credit cards.
In healthcare, compliance with Physician Payments Sunshine Act, now formally run as the CMS Open Payments program, is also a requirement for organizations. The law was signed as Section 6002 of the Affordable Card Act in 2010, and CMS’s most recent program year data, published in 2026, covered more than 17 million payment records worth a record $14.67 billion. This underscores just how closely these financial relationships are still being tracked.
Additionally, this act helped put a very clear code of ethics in place for healthcare providers when it comes to the equipment and medications that they use. Be sure to include details about the Open Payments/Sunshine Act in your card policy and provide examples of how employees can ensure their spending complies with it.
Further, communication between different departments and individuals is vital to consider as it’s important to know who’s buying which items. This can help you avoid unnecessary overspending and also make sure there is clear oversight for monthly expense audits.
4. To Control Costs, Avoid Duplicate Payments
Everyone deserves to get paid accordingly, but this doesn’t mean they should be paid twice. Duplicate payments are one of the leading ways that money is lost from right within an organization. If you don’t have a clear and organized payment system and effective procedure to follow, it’s common for duplicate payments to occur.
Most times, this is due to a lack of communication between departments or individuals. Perhaps AP pays an invoice to a supplier but the same bill gets paid via a card as well. Narrow down your payment methods and get specific about how you’ll pay vendors and make other payments. Also, check to make sure each vendor is listed in your system one time and under one consistent name.
Then communicate these terms clearly to the appropriate departments. Realize that duplicates can also be a result of fraud and intentional activity to divert money away from the organization. The solution is to increase visibility by connecting all involve departments and tighten up communication regarding when and how payments are being made.
5. Use a Few Trusted Suppliers
Having a preferred supplier is a great way to increase savings and build relationships. It also simplifies card transactions greatly. Substandard and counterfeit medical supplies and devices remain on ECRI’s list of top health technology hazards, continuing to disrupt and already strained supply chain. They’re detrimental not only to patient safety, but also to a company’s funds.
Using a preferred supplier can help to eliminate these issues as having a relationship with who you are buying from helps to affirm trust and confidence.
Some suppliers even offer discounts as part of the contract so employees can save money when they buy from specific suppliers. For example, if you have a contract with Lowes, you may want employees to purchase from there for a greater discount rather than going to Home Depot for the same item. If you have a contract with a specific airline, be sure to let employees know this by stating it clearly in your card policy.
Use Expense Data Metrics to Move Goals Forward
Improving communication and implementing effective cardholder training are great assets to improve spend visibility. However, one of the best ways to tie everything together is by carefully analyzing the actual expense data across multiple sources. Whether you have P-Cards, Travel Cards, supplier invoices, or other types of expenses, odds are, you are (or can be) collecting tons of data each month.
Ditch paper processes and use a third-party expense monitoring service like Card Integrity to help you find red flag purchases, analyze spend behaviors and trends, validate receipts, and catch anything that might have slipped through the cracks.
Want to Shine a Light on Your Own Spend Data?
These six tactics only work if you can actually see what’s happening across your card program. Our free eGuide, Shining a Light on Spend Data Visibility, walks through how to turn that raw expense data into the kind of clarity that drives real cost savings.
Post originally published in 2022. Updated September 3, 2026 with more relevant news and sources of information.
