Health Industry

Healthcare business process outsourcing, or simply Healthcare BPO means outsourced business activity or process that provides support (admin or otherwise) to medical institutions, staff, and organizations. Commonly outsourced activities include coding, billing services, transcription, etc.

It’s safe to say that healthcare companies, ranging from insurers to pharmaceutical companies, are not seen as the most customer-centric. With an increasing demand for healthcare services, it’s only essential for businesses to ensure better patient and customer experiences. An aging population, coupled with the current state of healthcare emergencies warrants a check into the operational capabilities of healthcare brands.

An important change would be to bring about exceptional CX and employ digital-first touchpoints. An important component of that will be to move out of the negative emotions province of worry, and fear that comes with sickness and start to introduce seamless patient-doctor and customer interactions – moving from sick-care to proactive healthcare experiences. Predicting problems and solving them before they bother the patient-customer has become the new norm. Customer experience in healthcare has come a long way. On the other hand, reading from its low popularity, there is still a lot of room for improvement. And this is where healthcare business process outsourcing comes into play.

Types of Healthcare BPO Services

The healthcare BPO sector handles a variety of activities covering data entry to medical claims processing services. Some key healthcare provider services that you can outsource to a healthcare business process outsourcing partners are:

Medical Coding and Billing

Hospitals and healthcare professionals process tons of medical records every day. Unlike other industries where coding and billing is a reasonably straightforward activity, medical coding and billing can be complicated.

With medical staff more suited to cater to the needs of patients, these that’s why you need specially trained staff to deal with these records. Without the right knowledge and expertise, you will face significant delays and errors in processing your patient bills and records. To prevent any coding and billing hiccups, healthcare outsourcing comes into the picture.

As professionals, healthcare business process outsourcing teams are well-equipped with the necessary resources to do the job accurately and efficiently. This lets you focus on tasks that matter to your organization, like medical research, patient treatment, and care.

Claims Processing

Processing patient claims is a critical healthcare activity. Patients need to have proper medical claims for their insurance companies. But when there are hundreds of claims to be processed every day, it’s pertinent to maintain accuracy on every single one. To ensure that patient claims are in check, it’s smart to outsource claims processing to a third-party service provider. With appropriate resources and manpower to do the job, specialized teams are allocated to process large volumes of medical claims. Also, as this is all that they’ll be focusing on, you won’t have to worry about distractions clouding the accuracy of the claims.

Data Processing Services

In addition to treating their patients, healthcare providers have to process and update large volumes of medical data every day. Managing and processing data is a tedious job as it is, but healthcare organizations have large volumes of data to take care of, for example:

• Tests and lab reports
• Prescriptions and drug inventory
• Patient insurance details
• Other hospital records

Outsourcing data entry activities will help you free up time and resources for your other core healthcare activities. While data entry is usually the safest activity to outsource as it’s relatively simple, remember to only outsource it to a proven healthcare BPO.

Outsourcing for the Healthcare Industry

For years, outsourcing was not considered to be possible within the healthcare sector, but the right BPO 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.

A study from PwC shows that only 49% of consumers say that the healthcare customer experience is satisfactory.

Leveraging outsourcing for the healthcare industry benefits both – the patients and staff – in ways more than one. Here are some benefits to consider:

Focus On Patients

When you outsource time-consuming tasks to a third-party service provider, you have more time to focus on offering your patients the quality care they deserve. Reduce your load when it comes to handling redundant tasks and managing administrative duties and your team can enhance the patient experience.

Cost-Effective

This isn’t the most important reason to outsource, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Save money and lower your operational expenses by outsourcing rather than paying to hire and train in-house staff. The money you save through outsourcing can then be used to enhance your healthcare business.

Grow Your Offerings

When you outsource certain roles, you get to focus your time and energy on providing quality care and expanding your services. With outsourcing, you will likely have more time and financial resources to implement new specialties or services in your practice.

Avoid Costly Mistakes

The healthcare sector is sensitive. You have access to patient records, medical information, and all-around sensitive data. Additionally, health insurance portability and accountability rules and regulations can be challenging to navigate. The right BPO partner will ensure your organization meets all guidelines, is up to date on new rules and regulations, and can even help you avoid costly billing issues.

Access To Industry Experts

When you partner with the right BPO Company you are adding value to your existing team and organization. Outsourcing can give you access to professionals who are professionally trained to handle various types of data and can save you time and money on hiring and training support for your on-site staff.

Healthcare Business Process Outsourcing & an Increasing Need for Support In Healthcare

Traditionally, the path to a physician was straight to their door. Now, consumers often self-diagnose, search online for local providers, or check out provider websites and ratings. Although some patients immediately reach for the phone to call the appointment line, many start this journey online through the provider’s appointment engine, through the patient’s online medical portal, or even via a mobile app.

According to a recent Gartner study, healthcare service organizations will need to raise their performance standards for today’s varied points of patient engagement (mobile, text, email, etc.).

But for an industry that hasn’t exactly been on the cutting edge of customer support trends, it is difficult for healthcare providers to bridge this gap.

The key is to take our cues from patient behavior. Many healthcare providers went with an intelligent and empowered strategy, providing significant amounts of information on websites to educate the consumer and push toward self-service options. But this has only been partially successful. For consumers that simply don’t understand how the healthcare systems work this glut of information only makes it more confusing to quickly focus on the right providers and
services.

Instead, consumers, even tech-savvy ones, are now bypassing overloaded online resources and turning directly to customer service for quick advice and scheduling. The challenge is healthcare providers that were educating and empowering didn’t take into account how they would manage large volumes of customer service requests that fell outside of the self-service
pit.

By evaluating these consumer behaviors, there are three basic customer service features that consumers prefer. By working to implement this approach and complement and spread existing customer service strategies. Healthcare providers can work toward a better balance of self-service and assisted service.

To realize maximum cost savings without sacrificing high-quality service, consider outsourcing medical support staff to the Philippines.

Outsourcing Alliance provides experienced, highly motivated medical billing and insurance claims support staff. Members of our staff are detail-oriented professionals who have medical backgrounds and deep industry knowledge. Outsourcing Alliance exceeds industry standards for data security and complies with all federal guidelines on record processing and storage. Please contact us to find out more about Outsourcing Alliance custom health and medical services.