What is Healthcare BPO?

Healthcare BPO (business process outsourcing) refers to the activity involving a healthcare provider contracting their non-core tasks/activities to a third/external party. Instead of performing the task themselves, the healthcare business hires an external party to carry out the work for them. While a few companies outsource these activities to the relevant outsourcing firms, others opt for outsourcing these activities to the freelancers directly.

What are the Reasons to Choose Healthcare BPO?

Outsourcing non-core/ secondary work allows the healthcare facilities as well as hospitals to concentrate on their core competencies. Outsourcing services such as medical billing along with marketing services enable the healthcare providers to solely emphasize effectively treating patients. In general, outsourcing is viewed as the process of contracting non-core work activities to a third party in other countries. For instance, several businesses outsource data entry and medical billing services to established third parties in nations like India for cost savings.

What are the Types of Healthcare BPO Services?

Claims Processing

Processing claims can be a crucial activity in the healthcare sector. Patients are required to have accurate medical claims, which are presented to their insurance firms. But with a number of claims that need to be processed almost every day, the accuracy rate on each one can go for a toss. To ensure proper tracking and checking of the patient claims, businesses are increasingly outsourcing these to a service provider. These third parties have skilled workforces as well as novel technologies that can seamlessly process huge amounts of medical claims. Additionally, since this is the only prime focus area for them, the business doesn’t need to worry about any other issues clouding their efficiency.

Medical Coding

Medical coding can basically be described as something that is similar to translation. The coder takes up work that is written one way (which can be a doctor’s prescription or diagnosis for a certain condition) and then accurately translates it into an alphanumeric or numeric code. For every diagnosis, medical procedure, and injury, there is a corresponding code.

There are countless codes for various medical procedures, diagnoses and outpatient procedures. A great example for medical coding will be a patient walking into a doctor’s clinic with a cough, significant production of sputum or mucus, as well as a fever. The nurse jots down the symptoms and conducts certain initial tests, post which the doctor assesses the patient to diagnose bronchitis. The medication is then prescribed to the patient. Every aspect of this visit will be recorded by the medical professionals in the office. Now the medical coder will translate each part of the relevant information related to the patient’s visit into alphanumeric and numeric codes, which will then be utilized in the billing process.

Data Entry Services

Healthcare data entry covers medication records, patient records, patient data entry, instrumental records, healthcare companies, medical diagnoses, clinics, hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical enterprises.

What are the Benefits of Outsourcing?

Access To Professionals at A Reduced Cost

Many businesses prefer outsourcing non-core tasks/activities to bring down the overall expenses. For instance, several healthcare firms outsource business activities to the Philippines.

Why though?

With skilled professionals working for you at reduced wage rates, there is a huge scope for cost-saving without any compromise on the quality. Moreover, since these are trained and skilled professionals, the business doesn’t have to have to be concerned about any goof-ups.

Businesses can Concentrate on Core Competencies

One of the key advantages of outsourcing can be the fact that it allows companies to focus solely on their core activities.

Healthcare BPO allows healthcare businesses outsource:

• Managing bills.
• Processing claims.
• Logging data entry.
• Resolving patient disputes.

Since the companies are no longer required to manage these themselves, they are left with a lot of time as well as resources to solely concentrate on patient care. This enhances customer experience while raising their reputation, which in turn attracts a higher number of customers. In addition, in instances involving billing disputes or any such issues, patients can directly contact the staff of the third party.

Enhanced Patient Experience

Since healthcare BPO enables companies to offer improved medical care, patients get to benefit a lot from it. Since the medical staff is not focused on managing all the different activities, they can dedicate plenty of time to offering patient care. The medical staff is not overburdened with entering bills or processing claims but is just simply focusing on attending to the patients and providing them with everything they require.

Major Trends Influencing the Healthcare BPO Market

The emerging trend of providers and payers in the healthcare sector seeking business models that help achieve patient-centric outcomes will favor the healthcare BPO market. In the last couple of decades, the healthcare industry has seen rapid adoption of intelligence automation, most notably the uptake of artificial intelligence for automation in different operations. The trend helps prevent expensive medical errors for healthcare providers while optimizing the utilization of assets for better patient outcomes. Technology firms that have an established presence in the healthcare IT sector, especially in developing economies, are gearing toward significant revenue streams in the majority of the developed nations. Healthcare providers in developed countries are progressively outsourcing claims processing to boost productivity gains.

Major Developments that have Bolstered Stakeholder Value

A prime area attracting the attention of the companies active in the healthcare BPO industry is providing services that ensure health insurance portability as well as complying with the regulations and rules. The demand for these services has escalated over the years, thanks to the strengthening foundation of digitalization within healthcare.

North America has emerged as the cynosure of high revenues for the healthcare BPO service providers around the world. Huge prospects have risen from the trend of taking up healthcare BPO services by the majority of the healthcare providers as well as payers for optimized operational costs and improved patient outcomes. In the past couple of decades, Canada and the U.S. have been the hubs of opportunities for firms in the healthcare BPO market. The rising penetration rate of AI in disease diagnosis and treatment will be a significant trend that could spur vast revenue streams. Other eminent regions in the worldwide market are Europe as well as the Asia Pacific.

Declaimer: This post is for informational purpose.

Also Read: The Impact of Covid-19 in IoT Security

Authored by: Vijay Kundekar