The healthcare industry in the west is going through a sea change particularly in the US. With health insurance becoming all the more pervasive, private healthcare providers are finding it hard to cope with the influx of fully insured patients.
Rendering quality patient care and taking care of the paperwork in compliance with government regulations has become a major challenge for both large hospitals as well as individual healthcare practitioners. Considering the fact that the US is home to 784,626 healthcare companies, the demand for primary medical professionals and auxiliary service professionals is going to rise exponentially. At present, the contribution of the healthcare industry to the GDP of the US is more than 18%, and this figure will only increase with time. In such a scenario, a lack of trained workforce to take care of healthcare support services is going to be a major stumbling block for the growth of the healthcare industry.
To cope with this chronic shortage of talent, healthcare practitioners and hospitals are already outsourcing support services to destinations like India. Till now, only limited jobs such as invoice processing, data entry, and document management are being outsourced, but with artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) taking all the industries by storm, the demand for high-end healthcare support services will rise. One study indicates that IoT can lower the costs of operational and clinical efficiencies by up to $100 billion per year. In another study, 64% of physicians agreed that IoT can help reduce the burden on nurses and doctors. It simply means that the demand for technical manpower will rise in the healthcare industry. Outsourcing will play a major role in meeting this demand for technical talent.
Top 5 reasons the healthcare industry will rely on outsourcing
Abundance of Talent
When it comes to hiring healthcare support staff, hospitals and medical practitioners have to spend a lot of time and money to find and hire the desired skillsets. First of all, the lack of trained manpower is a major hurdle in finding the right resources to take care of auxiliary functions such as billing, medical data entry, and document management, etc. If you want to leverage the emerging technologies to make your service delivery more efficient, you have to spend a fortune to employ the right resources. Outsourcing, on the other hand, not only gives you easy access to the most suitable skill sets but also enables drive the desired results at an affordable price.
Eradication of Critical Mistakes
Every year, the healthcare industry loses millions of dollars in paying penalties for wrong billing, inefficient processing of patient information, and inability to comply with the regulatory guidelines. This happens when your resources are taking care of multiple tasks and are hard-pressed for time. To avoid this loss of hard-earned revenue, outsourcing healthcare support services is your best bet. Due to the ample availability of well trained and qualified resources in countries like India, you can hire as many resources as you want to take care of your healthcare support services. These dedicated resources work exclusively for your in-house team and deliver quick and accurate services. Accurate processing of information saves you precious dollars in the longer run.
More Time for Patient Care
When healthcare practices do everything on their own, they tend to lose focus on their core business – patient care. Processing intricate insurance claims, maintaining patient information in compliance with regulatory authorities, and managing the manpower taking care of these support services leaves you with little time for patient care. As a result, you not only lose your credibility as a healthcare provider but also may have to pay huge penalties. To avoid this business detrimental scenarios outsourcing healthcare support services is your best bet. Your service provider gives you enough trained resources to take care of all your support services and also makes sure that the services rendered are in sync with your individual requirements.
Enormous Cost Savings
Healthcare practices can save a lot of operational costs by outsourcing support services to a specialized vendor. When you do data entry, document management, insurance claims handling, and other auxiliary work on your own, you have to hire resources to do so. Then there is office space, software, hardware, and employee benefits that you have to pay for. Al these factors dig a big hole in your finances. But outsourcing automatically absolves you of all these expenses. Every support service is rendered by your vendor at your own convenience; all you have to do is pay a monthly fee for the resources working on your outsourced process.
Ability to Leverage Emerging Technologies
The newfound technologies such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are revolutionizing every industry in a big way. These technologies can open new avenues of growth for the healthcare industry as well by making patient care more efficient and cost-effective. But incorporating these in our existing setup can be a costly affair given the expensive software and manpower required to do so. Outsourcing, however, can give you easy and cost-effective access to artificial intelligence. Since it is the core job of your vendor to add value to your existing practice, they have the right resources to implement the latest technology to your existing systems.
For example, your vendor can connect a patient’s healthcare app to your centralized monitoring system by using IoT. If you do this set up on your own, it can cost you dearly; but for your vendor, it is business as usual. They have technology and manpower to leverage the latest software. Similarly, your vendor can also incorporate AI tools into your existing processes to make patient care more efficient and intuitive.
Wrapping Up
The healthcare industry is growing more competitive by the day and only those practices will make it in the long run that is able to render quality patient care and efficient processing of patient data. Seamless processing of insurance claims and bills will also play a major role in the success of a patient care facility. While doing everything on your own will only add to chaotic operations and loss of finances, outsourcing healthcare support services can add a lot of value to your business and help you stay ahead of the curve. SunTec India is a reputed name in healthcare support services outsourcing. We as a specialized vendor have a proven track record of providing healthcare practices around the world with customized services. For more details of our services drop a line at info@suntecindia.com
