The global healthcare industry’s interest in outsourcing has grown massively in recent years due to the industry’s drive to reduce costs while still being able to provide quality healthcare service.

Before, the industry limited their outsourcing to medical data entry and medical transcription. But with the growing awareness that outsourcing has greater benefits for healthcare organizations and hospitals, many are looking into outsourcing healthcare information management systems, clinical research, Big Data, medical billing, and IT needs to keep patient data secured among many others.

According to Jonathan Clarke, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Administration at Penn State University, “Outsourcing is something we should think about, especially when it fuels efficiency and expands access to healthcare, but we need to be intelligent about it so as not to put patient safety at risk.” He also stated that around 90% of the hospitals in the Unites States are outsourcing some services particularly radiology services.

We list down five reasons the healthcare industry should think more about outsourcing their non-medical operations:

1. Critical Mistakes are Avoided

According to Tom Lowery in his article entitled 8 Ways Outsourcing Can Help Hospitals and Patients, US hospitals leave about $125 billion on the table each year because of poor medical billing practices. He adds that 80% of medical bills contain errors. One factor that contributes to this is that some hospitals are not updated with currently changing billing rules and regulations. With outsourcing, healthcare organizations can have a dedicated team of trained professionals that focuses on billing purposes.

2. Reduced Training Costs

Healthcare organizations that outsource their processes don’t also need to worry about shelling out extra money for education, software or staff training since the outsourcing partner sees to it that their employees are up to date with the latest changes in standards and regulations.

3. Access to Expert and Trained Professionals

There is no need to spend time finding trained professionals for healthcare processes because they will be ready to take on the job as soon as an outsourcing partner is signed in. Employee acquisition and retention isn’t also a concern anymore since these will be handled by the outsourcing partner.

4. More Focus on Giving Quality Patient Care

With an outsourcing partner taking care of looking for a healthcare organization’s staff and training them, healthcare providers will be able to focus on the more important things in the business – in this case, giving the best quality of care for patients. Outsourcing will help providers to lessen their tedious administrative and managing workload, and allow them to provide a positive patient care experience and improve on it as well.

5. Top-Quality Results with Cost Reduction

The biggest advantage of outsourcing healthcare services is the reduced costs in healthcare operations. Outsourcing brings in huge savings with its low-cost manpower and infrastructure. Healthcare outsourcing can help save companies 30-60% of costs. Aside from taking care of staff acquisition and retention, having an outsourcing partner also reduces excess administrative costs since the direct benefit of outsourcing is financial surge.

The Philippines is Top Healthcare Outsourcing Destination

In the next few years, the Philippines is set to become the top healthcare outsourcing destination thanks to its massive qualified workforce, infrastructure, and technology. The country’s outsourcing industry has grown over the recent years and is forecast to hit $2.4 billion in revenue in 2016.

“The Philippines right now, with the way you’ve been able to show how successful you can be with other industries with BPO and other areas, healthcare is the industry where you could play the mark of the world leader,” said public sector and healthcare leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Southeast Asia Consulting.

With our extensive list of outsourcing services available, medical providers—either a Healthcare Payer or a Healthcare Provider, or those belonging to the Software-as-a-Service (Saas) industry or the Pharmaceutical industry, all of these can trust us with everything they need. Being ISO 270001:2005 certified, ISO 9001: 2008 Certified and Six Sigma qualified, we guarantee nothing but the best when it comes to improving your services.

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.