Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) services help handle the complexities of billing, collections, and reimbursements in healthcare businesses. RCM is the backbone of the healthcare industry, and RCM service providers work round the clock to ensure their clients get paid on time for the services rendered.
The medical billing and coding companies handle revenue cycle services, from claims preparation to handling receivables collections, rejections, and denials and connecting with the patient or the insurance company in case of discrepancies.
Outsourcing is the process of hiring a third-party service provider to get a task done, which traditionally was done internally by the organization.
The idea of outsourcing some or all of the RCM services started sometime in the late 1990s. This was when most medical billing and coding companies and health care organizations started switching from manual processes to digitizing their systems. As a result, it was possible to access data and tools from any place.
Technological upgrades like high-speed internet and Voice over IP (VoIP) helped different teams sitting in different places to coordinate and work seamlessly. If the actual client was in New York, the RCM service provider could be in Atlanta and still manage perfectly well.
In other cases, there could be a medical billing company ‘A’ that works for a healthcare brand. ‘A’ can outsource a part of the service to another RCM service provider, ‘B’. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ coordinate with one another to get work done.
As healthcare providers started getting comfortable outsourcing RCM services, experts in the industry started looking at ways of further bringing down costs. That’s when the idea of offshoring emerged.
What’s offshoring?
It is relocating or transferring a part of your business process to an overseas service provider.
How is offshoring different from outsourcing?
Both outsourcing and offshoring are processes of getting a third-party deal with your RCM services. However, in the latter, the service provider is located outside your country.
Why do businesses offshore RCM services?
The idea of offshoring is majorly to reduce operational costs. You may be able to pay considerably less for the same amount of work done by a service provider in another country when compared to hiring a provider in your own region. This gets possible, thanks to the different foreign exchange rates.
Medical billing and coding companies have started reaching out to offshore partners in large numbers to help handle some or most of their processes. This is a trend that experts in the industry predict to continue.
How does this work?
Let’s say you are an RCM service provider in the United States and work with a couple of healthcare clients, handling their RCM services. One of your clients, a large hospital network, suddenly decides to expand aggressively in the next few months.
This means you will have to start handling an enormously huge number of claims than what you and your team were used to. Instead of hiring more staff, increasing your office space, and investing in tools and technologies that can cause you a money crunch, you would fare better offshoring the extra work to another service provider sitting in one of the developing countries.
Quintessence is one such RCM service company in India that works hand in hand with top medical billing and coding companies in the United States. We back them up with exceptional support and expert processes and are well-versed in the US healthcare and insurance markets. Our technology investments and intensive training help us stay prepared to handle complex claim processes and considerably improve reimbursement rates.
Offshoring is a prevalent discussion topic everywhere. Many industries, including IT, ITeS services, and manufacturing, have already established successful offshoring models and are doing great.
Apart from the financial aspect of offshoring, you should consider this option, as a medical billing and coding company, because of the flexibility of services. When a US-based medical billing company chooses a third-party service partner from a country like India, the time zones vary, and so will the work hours. As a result, they will be able to offer services 24X7. This is a definite advantage that such companies have to tap in.
The workforce in countries like India is exceptionally talented and comes with hands-on work experience in the billing and coding industry. As a result, your services get enhanced, and as a team, you can help your client get the best possible services.
There was a time when outsourcing would have been a practically impossible concept because of technological constraints. That has changed, and organizations are getting more comfortable dealing with remote employees and offshore partners.
In fact, the latest pandemic has shown us that an organization could exist successfully without the need for a shared physical workspace! If you have been pondering about partnering with an offshore medical billing and coding company, this is the right time to implement the change. You would definitely benefit financially, technologically, and strategically with an offshoring partner like Quintessence.
If you would like to know more about how Quintessence can support your RCM business, then do get in touch with us.
