Academic journal The Conversation did not hold its punches when it recently turned its attention to a crisis engulfing the healthcare sector. Beneath a headline alluding to “the elephant in the room”, the report’s authors declared excess workload was a root cause of what they declared a “healthcare system in collapse.”1
“Excess workload for frontline staff like nurses contributes to fatigue, burnout, medical error and staff quitting,” they wrote. “After heroically working under decades of austerity policies, (they) are burned out. If automakers took the same approach to workload management, not a single car would roll off the line with all five wheels properly connected (did you forget the steering wheel?)”.
If hospital and healthcare managers expected relief in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been sorely mistaken. A difficult recruitment market, ever-tightening budgets, rising costs and excess workloads are putting unprecedented pressure on team leaders and inspiring many executives to think outside the square for solutions.
And when they do, many are finding themselves drawn to a resourcing strategy with a rich history of helping organizations reduce costs, increase efficiencies and facilitate sustainable growth. That strategy is outsourcing, with offshore providers playing an increasingly vital role in healthcare cost management.
What is healthcare cost management?
Healthcare cost management is when a hospital or healthcare provider aims to reduce spending without negatively impacting the patient and their bottom line. The strategy is an option for health organizations of various sizes and services and can involve optimizing staffing, adjusting schedules, enhancing patient flow and utilizing innovative digital tools. Crucially, reducing unnecessary costs can help providers deliver more quality care to more patients.
Source: Outsourcing Trends in the Healthcare Industry - The New Workforce
What are the benefits of outsourcing healthcare support?
Partnering with offshore providers can deliver many benefits for health services hoping to improve experience for patients and staff. These include:
- Reduced labor costs: according to respected consultancy McKinsey & Co: “The mounting strain on health systems’ financial performance is forcing revenue cycle leaders to make difficult decisions.”2 Outsourcing healthcare support is one of the easier decisions to tackle budget concerns, with the lower cost of living in offshore destinations such as the Philippines saving up to 70% in wages and salaries. There is also the luxury of not needing to pay for the likes of recruitment, onboarding and training.
- Greater talent pools: it is no secret that hospitals across the United States are struggling to fill vacancies3, which is why many teams are looking offshore to find staff that would have once been beyond their reach. On the back of technological advances, the world has never been smaller and many health services are benefiting by working with outsourcing providers that nurture pools of highly qualified and hard-working candidates ready to support healthcare operations.
- Scalability: healthcare is no different from many sectors that often find themselves under pressure to quickly scale operations up or down as demand rises or falls. Outsourcing is an efficient and cost-effective strategy for navigating such fluctuations as offshore providers not only have access to ready-made talent but systems in place to recruit and onboard workers with ease.
- Increased accuracy: speed and accuracy are essential for improving healthcare revenue streams, particularly when it comes to vital tasks such as medical billing and coding. One study found billing errors cost the medical sector about $20 billion4, which is a massive drain on hospitals and health services desperate to manage costs. Specialist offshoring providers can provide highly skilled medical coders who deliver fewer errors in admin roles and positively impact revenues.
- Enhanced patient care: managing costs is a fact of life for health executives but they need to balance that imperative with delivering quality patient care. Allowing clinicians to transfer time-consuming and routine administrative tasks to outsourcing partners allows frontline staff to spend more time on their core task of looking after patients, improves their morale and reduces stress and fatigue - all of which adds up to better patient outcomes and higher-quality care.
Source: Hospital Outsourcing Market Report 2024 - Hospital Outsourcing Market Size And Outlook By 2033
What are key services offered by outsourced healthcare support?
There are multiple areas within hospitals and healthcare services that offshore providers can offer support including:
- Administration: modern technology means it has never been easy for hard-working talent to provide administrative support from remote locations. Outsourcing providers can handle tasks including appointment scheduling, insurance coordination and human resources.
- Medical transcription: clinical staff need to maintain accurate records but transcribing medical notes steals precious time that they would rather spend with patients. Outsourcing medical transcription is a smarter way of tackling this task and eases the load on doctors, nurses and allied health staff.
- Data management: data is king in the modern world and nowhere more than in the health sector given its ability to deliver valuable insights into patients and trends. Offshore specialists can provide the expertise needed to manage and analyse data and support better decision-making.
- Customer service: a little understanding goes a long way in healthcare, which is why many hospitals are turning to outsourcing providers for customer service. The combination of reduced labor costs, leading technology and access to hard-working, empathetic talent is allowing health services to provide more patients with more support more of the time.
- Data entry: hospitals and health services deal with endless data, be it medical claims, patient bills or test results. Quality outsourcing providers offer an ideal solution for entering and storing data in the cloud, with streamlined processes and an unwavering commitment to accuracy.
Conclusion
Modern healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to deliver top-tier patient care while simultaneously achieving cost efficiencies, improved accuracy and seamless scalability. That is no easy job but fortunately they have the option of adopting an outsourcing strategy that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of organizations of all shapes and sizes.
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