Balancing Cost Savings and Quality in Healthcare Outsourcing

Healthcare providers rely on BPO services for healthcare to handle non-core functions so they can focus on providing quality care to their patients. With a forecasted market worth $488.28 billion by 2030, it is evident that organizations are paying substantially for quality BPO services. However, with the pressure to mitigate the ballooning costs of healthcare, you may be looking for ways to balance cost savings and quality healthcare outsourcing.

Outsourcing for the Healthcare Industry

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solutions involve the process of delegating certain tasks and functions to a third-party company. For the healthcare industry, outsourced services typically handle administrative or non-core functions, which allows their staff to focus on the medical aspect of healthcare.

Business outsourcing solutions for healthcare handles a variety of tasks: 

• Data entry
• Claims processing
• Medical coding and billing
• Payment collections
• Prior authorization
• Denial management
• Recruitment and payroll 
• Patient support services
• Benefits and utilization review
• Care coordination

Outsourcing healthcare services offers numerous benefits for healthcare providers, such as improving efficiency, enhancing care, maintaining compliance with various medical standards and regulations, and keeping patient data secure while reducing operational costs.

Cost Savings Vs Quality in Outsourcing

All businesses, including healthcare organizations, straddle the very fine line between minimizing costs and providing high-quality patient services.

For the healthcare industry, balancing cost savings and quality in healthcare outsourcing is critical.Healthcare providers cannot overspend and charge it on patients because it will result in exorbitant healthcare costs and, potentially, worsen health inequalities.

Conversely, staff reduction may negatively affect the quality and speed of healthcare services, as well as the morale of staff members. Without strategic deliberation, cutting costs could have adverse effects on the institution, its employees, and patients.

More often than not, the key to cost savings is investing in quality. It seems counterintuitive but the healthcare industry’s investment in outsourcing health services in the Philippines is proof.

Healthcare providers outsource a BPO company to cover various administrative functions, which allows them to focus on delivering healthcare. This practice has helped organizations improve their healthcare services and efficiency, as well as cut down costs.

How?

By delegating non-core functions to a BPO company, institutions relieve their in-house staff of additional workload. This allows them to focus on their core responsibility of attending to patients and avoid burnout. The result is higher employee morale and better quality of care.

Nevertheless, healthcare organizations must mitigate spending to avoid going under and keep healthcare affordable. So, while a BPO solution offers substantial benefits, they must find a way to get the most value in their investment – in other words, find a balance between cost savings and quality.

How to Balance Cost Savings and Quality in Healthcare Outsourcing

We have established the importance of balancing cost savings and quality. However, this is a challenging feat, especially for the healthcare industry.

Business outsourcing solutions is one of the most practical ways to find the balance between quality and cost-cutting. Just like every investment, outsourcing a healthcare BPO requires strategy.

If your goal is to cut down costs without compromising quality, here are things you should consider:

Think Long-Term

Healthcare outsourcing is not a short-term project or solution. It is a long-term investment that, much like wine, only gets better with time.

BPO solutions take on important functions that deal with confidential information. So, it is imperative to select a company that you can work with long-term.

Trust is a major factor here. Healthcare institutions need to invest in a BPO company that also invests in long-term relationships with its partners. This type of company collaborates with its partners in fostering trust and cultivating shared growth.

A long-term partnership with a trusted BPO provider means you work with someone who has a historical understanding of your needs and goals. Doing so helps promote cost-savings, increase revenues, improve operational efficiency, and boost patient satisfaction.

By investing in a long-term partnership, you avoid the need to switch providers every few years, which requires re-investing your resources so the new provider can understand your operations and needs.

When you work with a long-term partner, you work with someone who has a historical understanding of your needs and goals and, therefore, is better equipped to help you improve your performance in the long run.

Prioritize Quality Partnerships

Since you’re in it for the long run, it is equally critical to select a quality partner. Find a partner BPO that is worth investing in.

The BPO company should understand your goals and be willing to work with you toward them. This means that they should be able to address your needs but also provide value beyond that. 

Helping you cut costs immediately is good, but can they implement changes that can help you with sustainably balancing cost savings and quality in healthcare outsourcing? Are they capable of addressing your changing needs and growing with you? In addition, do they have the necessary certifications — ISO, GDPR, B Corp, Sarbanes-Oxley, and of course, HIPAA?

How can you find quality partnerships? Do your research first – see what they offer and whether they fulfill those promises. See if they have the right technologies to support your operations, qualified professionals in their team, ISO, GDPR, and Sarbanes-Oxley certifications, and are HIPAA and DPA compliant. 

You may also read client testimonials to verify the quality of a BPO provider’s service.

Automation and Business Intelligence Technologies

According to Deloitte’s 2022 study, companies that adopted automation and intelligence technologies achieved up to 31% cost reduction over three years. Indeed, automation technology has a positive impact on cost efficiency, empowering healthcare providers to provide efficient yet personalized care..

A tech-driven BPO solution for healthcare leverages cutting-edge technology to help you streamline manual processes like medical billing, medical transcription, and data processing. AI can also help improve patient experience by optimizing appointment scheduling, simplifying insurance claims processing, and reducing wait times through faster administrative procedures and care coordination. BI technologies can offer valuable insight that you can leverage to deliver personalized care and improve patient outcomes.

A BPO provider with a future-thinking, tech-driven mindset can help healthcare providers enhance patient care and outcomes. These types of companies are likely to continue evolving and expanding their services and technologies, which you can continue benefiting from for years.

Seek Scalability

If your priority is cost optimization, it is also important to look for a BPO provider that offers scalable and flexible solutions.

Scalable BPO providers can accommodate any changes to your healthcare institution’s needs, the most basic of which is scaling up as your organization grows.

This way, you can focus on strengthening your partnership and working toward your goals.

Examine their Culture of Accountability

Accountability is another key factor in the talks of cost savings vs quality in outsourcing. Working with a BPO solutions provider that fosters a culture of accountability helps ensure that their employees accomplish their tasks and responsibilities according to internal standards and HIPAA regulations.

Look for a BPO that also has a culture of accountability. They should willingly provide all the necessary information to help you decide, let you take charge of the processes, measure performance and take responsibility for any errors.

Accountability promotes excellence and helps reduce errors. This is a critical factor for healthcare providers as errors could be costly and detrimental to their patients’ trust.

Thus, by investing in a provider that values accountability, you also enhance your institution’s efficiency and accuracy, as well as safeguard your institution’s resources and reputation.

Establish Open Communication

If you want to invest in a BPO solution for healthcare and find a balance between cost efficiency and quality, you need to establish open lines of communication with your provider. Discuss communication processes and channels to ensure you can access key people when necessary.

Transparency goes both ways. Make sure that your BPO provider includes proactive communication about milestones and challenges in their processes. As the client, it would also benefit the service provider if you lay out exactly your goals, your pain points, and your expectations so your provider can address them accordingly. 

As mentioned, your BPO solutions provider is your partner in achieving efficiency and excellence, so it’s not enough to invest money. You also need to invest time to get to know them and share critical information about your institution for them to be able to help you.

Find Balance with Infinit-O

Infinit-O believes that cost efficiency can only be achieved with an investment in quality. Our solutions are designed to provide value to our clients – improving quality, performance, and efficiency – to optimize operational costs. We leverage the latest automation intelligence technologies to help you figure out how to balance cost savings and quality in healthcare outsourcing for your organization.

Infinit-O is the trusted customer-centric and sustainable leader in Business Process Optimization to Small and Medium businesses in the Financial Services, Healthcare and Technology sectors by delivering continuous improvement through technology, data and people.

For more information, visit: www.infinit-o.com