Health IT

The other ‘three’ things your practice can outsource

Outsourcing some of your obligations not only reduces your workload but can also improve your […]

Outsourcing some of your obligations not only reduces your workload but can also improve your overall productivity.

Outsourcing is a popular method used by companies to shed off some of their tasks to other service providers who are good at that particular task. Outsourcing is the practice of assigning a part of your work to another specialist party, hence reducing your workload. For example, a car manufacturing company usually outsources its tires to a tire manufacturing company. The primary benefits of outsourcing include cost reduction, improving efficiency and ultimately profit maximization. According to worldwide polling conducted by Deloitte, one of the largest accounting firms in the world, 78% of the companies are happy with their outsourcing partners and are willing to continue business with them. When asked about the reasons why the companies wanted to outsource, 59% businesses preferred outsourcing due to cost cuts, 57% businesses opted for outsourcing so they could focus on their core business and 47% businesses felt that outsourcing would solve capacity issues for them.

Medical practitioners in the country have a lot of work lined up on their desk, in course of their practice. Therefore, they’re almost ready to outsource any extra work that a third party can handle on their behalf. Usually, outsourcing within the domain of medical practice is considered almost synonymous to the outsourcing of medical billing. And there’s a good reason for this. Medical billing takes a lot of time and effort on a practice’s part to manage efficiently and outsourcing it saves them from a huge hassle, improves their operations and reimbursements. However, there are plenty of other tasks a practice can look to outsource in order to have more free time, save money and eliminate repetitive administrative tasks.

Technical Assistance and IT Support: Letting IT professionals taking care of your technical needs on a day-to-day basis.

With the advent of Health Information Technology (HIT) in the healthcare system of the United States, medical practitioners often face a situation where they need someone with expertise in data processing and computer handling to resolve their IT related queries and issues. Some larger healthcare providers find it feasible to invest in an IT expert or a team of IT professionals. However, the smaller practices might not find it feasible to make such a heavy investment, considering that IT experts are some of the highest paid individuals in the world. According to PayScale, an average IT professional in the United States earns $66,940 per annum, which can be a staggering investment on an individual person. Hiring a full-time team would make this investment even more costly.

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In such a situation, it is best to get your IT related problems outsourced. There are dozens of IT specialist firms that would be happy to cater to your needs and offer you a package that meets your preplanned cost. It would not only reduce your expenditures on IT payroll but will also make your life easier by reducing your focus on the IT related issues and offering you the cushion to focus on more important tasks at hand.

Recruitment of Appropriate Employees: Finding the right person for your needs.

The process of recruitment is quintessential to any firm and it involves selecting the right person for the right job, by taking into consideration the knowledge, skills and abilities of that person. After going through hundreds of applicants, performing various pre-employment screenings and assessments and finally filtering out the right person, the firm may also need to negotiate his payroll and manage his appraisals.

Irrespective of the size of your practice, you always need a continuous process of human resource management. The hiring process itself is unwieldy and there’s always a chance that you may need to repeat the process of recruitment if the right person is not hired or he leaves the after his selection. Plus, for hiring against any specific post, there might be different requirements for the screening and shortlisting process.

Most organizations these days prefer to get their hiring done by a third-party recruiting firm which does the painstaking task of analyzing thousands of applicants and then individually screening them to ensure that the best out of the lot has been selected. Medical practitioners can also outsource their recruitment process to any medical staffing agency. They’ll perform all the necessary checks on the prospective applications to extract the most suitable candidate that can be utilized by you. All you would be required would be to take his final interview and ascertain if he is the person you need. Outsourcing your recruitment will take away unnecessary burden off your task sheet and allows you to focus on your patients.

Hiring partners are easy to find. There are dozens of hiring partners in the US that you can discuss your needs with. All of them will have different plans and terms. According to Forbes, Los Angeles based Korn Ferry is amongst the best recruiting firms in the country and they have excellent outreach when it comes to hiring IT professionals. Other options include Lucas Group and MRINetwork.

Call Management: Handling that unguided plethora of incoming calls for you.

Phone calls, especially the inbound calls, can be a cumbersome task to handle. From patients to advertisers, different people from different backgrounds and with different needs and concerns would call you. With the practice going on and with several patients lined up for their turns, attending phone calls would be just a mere distraction from the actual task at hand. Yes, some calls maybe important but most of them can wait until you are done with your practice for the day.

Thankfully, you can also outsource your calls to a medical call center, which would be happy to speak to the callers on your behalf. The smaller and relatively unimportant queries would be answered on the spot whereas the larger ones would be answered by you. If the call is highly important, it would be marked as a high priority query and would be transferred to you as per the medium decided between you and the media call center. The low priority ones would be filtered out which you might entertain in your off-peak hours.

Frank Quinn

The writer is a leading Health IT analyst contributing regularly on some of the most pressing topics like Electronic Health Records, Practice Management, eRx, Patient Portal, Billing Services, Compliance and Privacy and Security.

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