Open market for offshore presence in healthcare
13 December 2005
Mumbai: Maintaining and improving the consistency of care and responsiveness to patient needs is on top of the agenda for healthcare organisations. In a published brief, Selling Offshore Outsourced Contact Centre Services to the Healthcare Industry, the London-based Datamonitor puts 2005 global contact centre outsourcing revenues associated with healthcare at approximately $800 million.
By 2008, Datamonitor expects it to exceed $1.1 billion. "Ageing populations are placing a strain on healthcare systems", says Peter Ryan, outsourcing and offshoring analyst with Datamonitor and author of the brief. "In the US alone, some estimates indicate that 76 million 'baby boomers' will turn 65 in the next 10 years. Any solutions that help lower administrative costs thereby freeing clinician time to concentrate on front-line patient care resonates well with healthcare industry professionals. With this in mind, offshore locations are becoming a compelling case in the overall mix of the healthcare sectors' provision of patient care.
Many traditional offshore locations such as India and the Philippines have developed successful back-office services for the healthcare field. By implementing a successful customer-facing end, offshore providers have the possibility of adding such value-added services to their healthcare repertoire in the future, thus potentially becoming a one-stop shop for investors in this field.
Some key back-office functions in healthcare include:
- Physician transcription services
- Claims transcription services
- Medical coding
- Billing services
The brief outlines the key issues surrounding contact centre outsourcing in healthcare from the perspective of offshore service providers. Due in part to the fact it is and will remain the world's largest national healthcare market, as well as due to its commercial nature, the Brief is focused on the US healthcare system.
Datamonitor estimates that 6,000 healthcare contact centre agent positions in the US are outsourced domestically. This accounts for nearly 8 per cent of call centre agent positions dedicated to healthcare contact centre services.
