Healthcare organizations are already overwhelmed to maintain their own IT services as they have a limited budget and are looking for different ways to outsource healthcare IT services to control the rising costs. When a practice outsources its clinical or medical billing operations the specialist can offer a particular service more efficiently and economically.

An Increase in Healthcare Outsourcing

A recent Black Book poll of 1,600 hospital executives revealed that 34% of these healthcare organizations anticipated increasing their existing level of outsourcing healthcare IT services in the next two years. Furthermore, 81% of hospitals that had outsourced IT services were already witnessing a return on their investment.

The global healthcare IT outsourcing market is estimated to reach  $61.2 billion  by 2023, as revealed by a report by Transparency Market Research. The increase in outsourcing healthcare IT services is driven by a high demand for electronic systems, and the deployment of cloud EMR Software solutions.

Why should a practice consider outsourcing?

By outsourcing operations, practices can experience two obvious benefits reduced costs and an increase in efficiency levels. When healthcare IT services are Outsourced medical practices don’t have to maintain staff members and also avoids the investment in equipment that can be expensive. Outsourcing is a sustainable strategy to enhance both patient care and ROI.

Practices can also focus on patient care easily as they don’t have to keep up with the ever-changing technology and the complex privacy and security laws. The outsourced team members are competent and fully trained experts.

4 prime benefits of outsourcing

  1. Opportunity for Greater Scalability – Managed services can help improve the scalability of the offered services. IT leaders should plan capacity to meet future needs. When practices have in-house services the capacity is usually idle in the hope to be used shortly. On the other hand, when healthcare IT services are outsourced they have access to increased capacity which helps to meet ongoing demand and requirements without having to invest more.
  2. Efficient Data Collection – When practices outsource they are provided with the latest technology to facilitate data collection and analysis without extra capital investment. By outsourcing services they have greater access to professionals who know how to handle management tasks such as clinical research, billing, and health outcomes.
  3. Seamless Medical Billing – Medical coding and billing procedures are complicated and healthcare professionals can’t focus on financial procedures as their main focus is on patient care. When medical billing tasks are outsourced practices can ensure error-free billing as financial experts are dealing with end-to-end procedures. Accurate medical claims can be provided to insurers for unified claims processing. This way hospitals can avoid critical and costly billing issues and can reduce the issue of denied claims. This streamlined the billing process and even keeps patients satisfied.
  4. Improved Security – The healthcare sector is threatened by cyber-attacks in the form of ransomware attacks and malware attacks. Outsourcing can turn out to be beneficial to protect data from potential hackers as they take all emergency measures to prevent mishaps. The outsourcing software vendor or party ensures secure patient data while complying with HIPAA regulations.

How to Select the Outsource Partner?

When practices and hospitals have decided to outsource a particular service they should look for reliable vendors with good history and reputation. The third-party company should take patient privacy and security seriously. They should update their software systems to offer regular backups. The outsourced partner has a great track record and offers services such as Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) Software, billing services, practice management software solutions, patient engagement, and electronic health record management. All of these solutions help the hospital management, clinicians, and staff members to offer high-quality patient care and services.