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Medical Outsourcing- Insights, Benefits & Trends

Author: Richa Singh

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is a success.

These lines explain the process of outsourcing. Today facilitating experts of different fields become difficult in an environment with increasing operational costs. The plan of action today is to strengthen your strengths and leave the weaknesses to third parties who have aced that arena. Outsourcing helps access vast portfolios of specialized resources and enables businesses to leverage specialized talent without having to hire them internally. This not just reduces the operational costs but also improves the efficacy and the overall experience of the customer.

Post the regressions of the pandemic one of the industries that is in prime focus is the Medical industry.

So, ever wondered what it would take to effectively run a hospital?

Thinking of Doctors and nurses rushing around to attend to their ailing patients, but is this all that comprises the medical realm? The answer is no, there are numerous other professionals on the list that are necessary for a fully functional medical facility.

The burning question is whilst setting up a medical facility post the pandemic where none but the specialists are demanded for how does one procure and maintain substantial manpower without lagging behind in the revenue generation?

That’s where outsourcing steps in.

Speaking of Medical outsourcing companies in India, with the progression of avant-garde technologies the medical industry has seen tremendous growth, but with this growth came the escalating dynamics among physicians, hospitals, managing staff and patients. In times where the country is still battling the setbacks due to the pandemic, managing capital investments

seems an ordeal. Thus medical outsourcing has become a contributor in India’s booming outsourcing market.

So let’s delve into the reasons of outsourcing in medical scapes, the reasons for prevalence of medical outsourcing in India the benefits and drawbacks of medical outsourcing and trends of medical outsourcing in 2023

Reasons of outsourcing in medical scapes

Traditionally the journey of getting one’s ills cured was no more complicated than it is today. Today patients, often self diagnose and if they consider reaching out to a physician they first browse through the online ratings and patient reviews.

After having finalized the physician only a few patients call and book an appointment whereas majority of them book an appointment online through the provider’s appointment engine, through the patient’s online medical portal, or even via a mobile app, then comes the responsibility of storing the medical history of all the patients, maintaining their prescription details, and also generating errorless patient bills.

Thus medical scapes today not just demand medicine proficiency but professionals in handling data, medical coding and billing teams, teams to maintain the online apps. These responsibilities are to be handled with as much diligence as the patient treatment, thus for handling all of these professionals are outsourced by the hospitals so that the hospital can focus on improving the core matters of patient care and leave the noncore matters to the outsourced teams.

Status of medical outsourcing in India

Outsourcing for years was not considered to be possible within the healthcare sector, but the right outsourcing partner can invariably alter day-to-day business operations for the better. Not only that, outsourcing certain back office, and patient experience aspects of the job, also allow for better business growth along with exceptional medical care.

Therefore in India medical outsourcing is growing at the rate of 150 percent per year with no signs of abating. The four industry groups turning to India for their outsourcing needs are Healthcare providers, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare IT companies.

Reasons for the growth of Medical outsourcing industry in India

• Lower costs– Outsourcing developed from the idea of mitigating the high costs of bringing skilled professionals aboard. To add to the bounty Indian outsourcing companies offer their clients per hour, per lead and fixed monthly prices so that the payer companies can choose best-suited options. Thus on an average, a payer company can save up to 65% on operational costs by outsourcing from India.
• Large pool of Talent– India prides over the dominance of its young working With a population of 1.2 billion of which 3.1 million graduate every year, India provides for a large pool of skilled manpower providing unmatched quality of work. Thus payer companies turn to India to maximize their staff efficiency, productivity, improve patient care, patient experience and the treatment outcomes.
• Committed Employees– Owing to the social setup of Indians it’s difficult for us to say NO to any task assigned. Most of the Indian companies work 8 hours a day and 6 days a week, moreover, the dedicated teams of the outsourcing companies can work round the clock to meet deadlines.
• Better Infrastructure– India, one of the fastest growing economies, with a fast rate of development is revamping its infrastructure that provides the employees with state-of-the-art technologies thus contributing to efficiency and productivity of the professionals.
• Increased Scalability– Startups are the buzz in the country so developing an outsourcing company in India is more probable, with the opportunity to quickly scale up or down the operations the outsourcing companies can easily blend with the market trends whilst striving to provide a better and a market-friendly work trend to the hospitals.

The benefits of medical outsourcing

Outsourcing can amplify the efficiency of revenue generation processes, help in leveraging economies and engaging in impactful decision-making.

• Cost cutting– The main motive of outsourcing is cost-cutting; providing reliable service delivery without unnecessary costs. Outsourcing the staff comes with the laden benefit of lower staffing costs, experienced professionals, least amount of legal formalities thus the core focus areas can be given more attention all in all increasing the patient satisfaction.
• Less erroneous work– We know that humans are bad at multitasking so if hospitals start having more of dedicated manpower to take care of different tasks, all well versed with the task assigned to them the chances of errors will be reduced to a great extent. Also with the ever-changing rules and regulations the dedicated teams will be well aware of the recent developments in their domain of work so chances of landing into unnecessary loopholes will also be reduced.
• Improve the payer company satisfaction and better their revenue generation– Outsourcing not just provides workforce to the payer companies but also gives secured employees, efficient work results, saves time on improving the noncore domains, gives time and space for developing the more responsible roles and supports the delivery of stellar patient care. This positively affects the revenue generation process. Especially when the outsourcing companies dealing with the medical billing procedures deliver proper growth metrics by following proper structured processes and clean claiming process the reimbursement rates show positive inclination thus filling up the revenue buckets. Summing up to a satisfied payer company.

But as its rightly said every truth has two sides and it’s better to look at both before we committee to either, so enlisting a few drawbacks of the medical outsourcing process

The drawbacks of medical outsourcing

Now having seen the lucrative claims of Healthcare outsourcing lets see how it will help outgrow the regressions of pandemic and what will be the trend of medical outsourcing during 2023-2028.

Outsourcing isn’t a panacea, the risks can be substantial, and providers need to do significant due diligence upfront to ensure that the right services are outsourced to the right partners.

• Data breaches causing patient privacy issues– The biggest problem with outsourcing is that the payer company needs to ensure the efficacy of the security provided by the outsourcing company as data breaches, data loss, data trading, data hacking are the prevalent threats to patient privacy. Therefore it is essential for providers and outsourcing partners to institute risk management programs that protect patient data and comply with the regulations.
• Quality issues– The payer companies shall brace themselves for probable quality issues due to communication gaps and the misunderstandings around the scope of work being provided and the full costs of those services.
• Lack of autonomy– The hospital would have functioned with uni polarity had it not been outsourced, but owing to the fact that there are potentially more than one outsourcing companies involved in the functioning of the particular hospital the functionality becomes multipolar.
• Finding the ideal Vendor– There are many outsourcing companies in the market providing almost the same set of services but finding the company whose policies, work ethics, cost and terms and conditions of work that best suit ones organization is a task in itself, because entrusting a wrong company can be detrimental to the hospital moreover changing the providers adds on to the pressure that was supposed to be bypassed by outsourcing work.

So an obvious question that surfaces is, Why is outsourcing so much called for, why not operate the hospital like a brick-and-mortar business?

Well thats because its pros often outweigh the cons, enabling it to have a lot to offer to the plate rather than ripping it off.

Now having seen the lucrative claims of Healthcare outsourcing lets see how it will help outgrow the regressions of pandemic and what will be the trend of medical outsourcing during 2023-2028.

Trend of healthcare outsourcing during 2023-2028

• Trends show that there will be a 60% rise in the outsourcing market as compared with the 2022 with medical outsourcing contributing 12.5% to it with a projected growth rate of 17.4% during 2023-2028.
• The market size value in 2021 was USD 1.55 billion and is projected to climb up to 3.47 billion with a CAGR of 12.2%
• The market tends to flourish more in Asia Pacific and European regions followed by Latin America and Middle East countries.
• The prominent players of the medical outsourcing market are: ICON plc, IQVIA Holdings, Mediscript, Seyyone

 Impetus for this trend

• The driving force to turn to after the global rise in inflation, widespread disruption of the global economy due to the pandemic and the vacuum caused because of the Russia-Ukraine war that has left ripples globally.
• The shift to telemedicine, shortage of staff leading to a scrambled staff set up. Both these changes require immediate and skilled workforce and outsourcing is the sole way to fulfill these needs.

Majority of the drug trial sites for the pharma world were located in Ukraine and Russia and are put on hold  owing to the war, numerous supply chain issues have stemmed from the chaos of the war thus redirecting the hospitals and healthcare centers who majorly or to some extent were dependant on these two countries for medical professionals and drugs are now turning to the outsourcing companies to help salvage the vacuum.

• India having aced the outsourcing market for the last two decades has proved its mettle in the outsourcing market and experts predict a bag of opportunities for the Indian job seekers owing to its growing stability in the outsourcing domain.
• Governments across nations are introducing stringent rules regarding healthcare which is potentially raising the operational costs of healthcare facilities and medical billing companies, this is making outsourcing the need of the hour .
• 2023 promises to see an industrialization and urbanization boom, the downside of it being the prevalence of disease across the globe which demands for a strong and reliable healthcare system which opens for more employ needs thus more reliance on the medical outsourcing companies.

To conclude would quote Hellen Keller,

”Alone we can do so little,Together we can do so much”.

In today’s competitive world where everyone is running in a rat race to be an edge apart, outsourcing helps in leveraging economies working together to achieve a shared goal of success. Medical outsourcing provides a comprehensive suite of services that can be customized to meet the specific needs. It leverages talent to deliver profit minting patient care. With an array of benefits medical outsourcing poses to be the best option for hospitals working with a distributed model.

So this was what I had to say about medical outsourcing and would love to hear your thoughts about it. Do leave a comment in the comment section.

Article word count: 1995 (excluding references)

References

1.Medical outsourcing – Wikipedia

2. 9 Reasons Outsourcing Could be the Future of Healthcare – Escalon

3. Medical outsourcing growing in India | Fierce Healthcare

4. Healthcare outsourcing now $300m biz, growing at 150% – The Economic Times

5. Outsourcing in Healthcare The Pros and Cons

6. Study: India’s outsourcing industry continues to boom | Computerworld