<p>With global healthcare BPO (business process outsourcing) market growing at 21 per cent annually, companies providing healthcare services in India are bullish on the sector. <br /><br /></p>.<p>According to Cognizant, healthcare payers and providers are looking for ways to contain escalating costs and better manage the dynamics among physicians, hospitals and patients and that’s where their BPO services can help.<br /><br />Healthcare outsourcing is basically outsourcing of services pertaining to healthcare like those of insurance business, e-records or maintaining of electronic records. HCL believes that there are around 117 million new enrollments that are expected to get into system in next five years due to reforms, exchanges and fall out of group insurance. Cost of handling individual business is much higher so payers need find ways to handle it without increasing cost and thus more payers would look forward to platform-based services to avoid capital investments on license, configuration etc and would engage service providers to leverage platform for payer specific efficiencies.<br /><br />HCL’s Healthcare BPO Payer Services, for example, include policy administration, claims administration, clinical administration, and financial administration. “HfS Research estimates that US healthcare BPO is a $1.2 billion market in 2011 and will continue to grow at 15-20 per cent over the next three years given the immediate pressure on payers to manage regulatory reforms,” an HCL spokesperson said. <br /><br />Anthelio Business Technologies, another provider of healthcare services in the US and Europe believes that the thing that will determine how much this industry can grow is the presence of domain-specific expertise and quality service. “We’ll have to be fast in responding to any situation that comes our way as healthcare is quite a mission critical service,” said Managing Director of Anthelio Business Technologies Viswanath Sivaswamy adding “healthcare has not caught up like other sectors where almost 60-70 per cent of the work is outsourced. We have a long way to go.” <br /><br />He sees a trend wherein CFOs have started working with CIOs giving technology support to healthcare a much stronger foothold. “Previously the sector was not as organised as it is now which gives much more value for money to CFOs,” he added.<br />Further, of late, providers of BPO services are moving from discrete product offerings or out-tasking (claims imaging and data entry) to strategic solutions, including end-to-end business processes (claims administration) as well as knowledge-based processes (provider network management, social media and fraud detection).<br /><br />Wipro believes that e-health is a relatively recent healthcare practice that leverages electronic processes and communication to manage healthcare information. E-health involves simplifying processes related to information, communication and transactions within and between healthcare institutions and professionals by utilizing information and telecommunications technologies.<br /></p>
<p>With global healthcare BPO (business process outsourcing) market growing at 21 per cent annually, companies providing healthcare services in India are bullish on the sector. <br /><br /></p>.<p>According to Cognizant, healthcare payers and providers are looking for ways to contain escalating costs and better manage the dynamics among physicians, hospitals and patients and that’s where their BPO services can help.<br /><br />Healthcare outsourcing is basically outsourcing of services pertaining to healthcare like those of insurance business, e-records or maintaining of electronic records. HCL believes that there are around 117 million new enrollments that are expected to get into system in next five years due to reforms, exchanges and fall out of group insurance. Cost of handling individual business is much higher so payers need find ways to handle it without increasing cost and thus more payers would look forward to platform-based services to avoid capital investments on license, configuration etc and would engage service providers to leverage platform for payer specific efficiencies.<br /><br />HCL’s Healthcare BPO Payer Services, for example, include policy administration, claims administration, clinical administration, and financial administration. “HfS Research estimates that US healthcare BPO is a $1.2 billion market in 2011 and will continue to grow at 15-20 per cent over the next three years given the immediate pressure on payers to manage regulatory reforms,” an HCL spokesperson said. <br /><br />Anthelio Business Technologies, another provider of healthcare services in the US and Europe believes that the thing that will determine how much this industry can grow is the presence of domain-specific expertise and quality service. “We’ll have to be fast in responding to any situation that comes our way as healthcare is quite a mission critical service,” said Managing Director of Anthelio Business Technologies Viswanath Sivaswamy adding “healthcare has not caught up like other sectors where almost 60-70 per cent of the work is outsourced. We have a long way to go.” <br /><br />He sees a trend wherein CFOs have started working with CIOs giving technology support to healthcare a much stronger foothold. “Previously the sector was not as organised as it is now which gives much more value for money to CFOs,” he added.<br />Further, of late, providers of BPO services are moving from discrete product offerings or out-tasking (claims imaging and data entry) to strategic solutions, including end-to-end business processes (claims administration) as well as knowledge-based processes (provider network management, social media and fraud detection).<br /><br />Wipro believes that e-health is a relatively recent healthcare practice that leverages electronic processes and communication to manage healthcare information. E-health involves simplifying processes related to information, communication and transactions within and between healthcare institutions and professionals by utilizing information and telecommunications technologies.<br /></p>
