Survey Shows Benefits of Outsourcing Physician Advisor Services

Outsourcing is not a new word for healthcare. The speed of growth of outsourced services is new. Now administrative services joins the ranks of services under outsourcing consideration. A recent survey indicates providers look to outsourcing Physician Advisor complex case review and complex claims review, because they anticipate a decline in reimbursements and inpatient margins narrowing further next year. Almost a 20% growth from 2013 to 2016.

Black Book’s 2016 Revenue Cycle Management survey responses of 1,309 hospital chief financial officers and business office leaders reveals that outsourcing of complex claims to a specialized provider climbed from 20.4% of all US hospitals in 2013, to 39.8% in Q3 2016.

“Hospitals must do more with less, even with the accelerating pressure to streamline claims processing efficiencies and maximize profitability,” said Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book, in a statement.

Releasing in-house staff to focus solely on optimizing traditional claims also improved internal productivity according to 77% of all current hospital outsourcing users surveyed.

• 81% of hospitals state they lack the specialized talent to resolve very difficult claims/cases, including 92% of hospitals under 150 beds.
• 69% of hospital CFOs state the
  [y] must staff with high cost back office employees to compensate for current patient accounting systems which lack in functionality to manage complex types of claims activity.
• 49% of hospital CFOs acknowledge that outsourcing is becoming a more viable alternative in 2017 for more parts of their organizational claim processing.

Indeed, the report found that the complex claims outsourcing market would likely grow 18% annually through 2019, adding to nearly 76% of U.S. hospitals already outsourcing some extended business office tasks.Outsourcing Physician Advisor

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