Hallmark Health Care Solutions, a provider of Workforce Intelligence and Enablement solutions, has launched AI-agent bill rate intelligence within its Total Workforce Vendor Management System (VMS), designed to help health systems achieve more accurate, market-aligned bill rates for all categories of contingent labor.
Health systems continue to navigate rising labor costs, persistent workforce shortages, and increasing pressure to make faster, more consistent staffing decisions. With labor often representing more than 56 percent of a health system’s operating expenses, each workforce decision carries significant financial consequences. Traditional rate-setting methods are often manual and static, which can leave organizations vulnerable to rate inflation, inconsistent pricing, and delays in filling critical roles. These challenges are further complicated by regional market variations and differences in experience levels and role complexities.
Hallmark’s new AI agent addresses these issues by leveraging machine learning, third-party data, and historical hiring data. It analyzes key factors such as role, region, location, assignment duration, start date, and experience level to generate data-backed bill rate recommendations. These recommendations are designed to reflect current market conditions while supporting governance and financial discipline within health systems.
Fully integrated within the Hallmark VMS, the functionality allows users to compare facility-level and regional rate guidance, review recommended ranges, and adjust rates before finalizing an order. This aims to reduce administrative burden for frontline leaders, improve consistency across programs, and strengthen negotiations with staffing partners for roles including nursing, allied, locums, and non-clinical positions.
The deployment of this AI capability aligns with broader industry trends, as reported by McKinsey, where 85 percent of healthcare leaders are already testing or using generative AI. Bharat Sundaram, CEO of Hallmark, commented on the development, stating, “By embedding AI-agent bill rate intelligence directly into the VMS workflow, we give leaders the ability to set precise, market-aligned rates in real time, accelerating hiring while protecting margin and ensuring access to care.”
Clients are utilizing this capability to support more disciplined rate setting, enhance agency negotiations, and drive measurable return on investment. Hannah Patch, Manager of Integrated Flex Staffing Resources at Community Health System, affirmed, “The AI agent supports us in making decisive, data‑driven rate decisions and advances our work to reduce contract labor spend while also remaining competitive.”
This AI agent expands Hallmark’s Workforce Intelligence and Enablement platform, which provides technology to health systems and provider groups nationwide. The platform integrates workforce intelligence, flexible workforce management, total workforce vendor management, and provider enablement to help optimize labor spend, integrate physician performance and compensation, and improve workforce engagement and retention. Hallmark currently serves over 50 health systems, managing more than $10 billion in physician compensation annually, enabling the sourcing of over 25,000 clinicians, and supporting more than 100,000 users daily. Through real-time insights and AI-enabled automation, Hallmark aims to empower health system leaders in achieving sustainable margin improvement while advancing access, quality, and staff well-being.
