A January report by MarketsandMarkets forecasted that the global healthcare information management (HIM) market will undergo a 10.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and reach the $189 million worth by 2018. It also suggested that in the next four years, HIM services will dominate the outsourcing business, as it will prompt vendors to offer services beyond customer service outsourcing.
The HIM market boom will increase the demand for various new processes, including:
• Claims processing (indexing, investigation, adjudication, re-pricing, settlement, litigation management)
• Member services
• HR services
• Medical billing
• Medical coding
• Medical transcription
• Finance and accounting
The US consumes the majority of the HIM service market while a large percentage of the demand arises from Europe. The countries cited as the top choices to send operations to include the Philippines, the US, India, and Eastern Europe.
As you can see, the emerging service demands are mostly non-voice back office work, while the eyed destinations specialize in voice-based customer service. There might be a difference in the sources’ needs and the destinations’ current expertise, but this doesn t mean that the outsourcing capitals would not be able to catch up the HIM market’s growth pace.
The Philippines, for one, has been gearing up for the HIM boom as early as 2010 by offering medical transcription and medical billing among other HIM processes to Western healthcare providers. As a result, the Philippine customer service outsourcing sector was able to penetrate international HIM markets. Revenues of the local outsourcing industry’s healthcare segment also soared by 66% last year after generating $433 million in 2012. Keeping traction, the segment could increase its worth to $1 billion by 2016 and provide 100,000 more jobs to Filipinos.
What we could deduce from this is that the growing HIM market paves ways for outsourcing companies to expand territories and widen their specialization. Outsourcing firms will conquer and learn new processes to address the need, thus shaping customer service into a more diversified business function.
Open Access BPO grew from a telemarketing startup to an all-around outsourcing firm that offers voice, non-voice, and back office solutions to businesses of all sizes. If you are a healthcare provider in need of outsourcing aid, Open Access BPO can help you with your stringent minor tasks. Visit our website or join us on Google+ to learn how.
