Black Book Market Research Survey Shows Sharp Rise in Clinical Outsourcing Partnerships

Are you thinking of outsourcing your billing and revenue cycle? Well, you’re not alone — A recent Black Book Market Research survey reveals a sharp increase in clinical outsourcing partnerships due to the pressures of value-based care reforms.

The survey said the top two reasons for outsourcing services are cost savings/avoidance (selected by 85% of respondents) and the expertise of the outsourcing vendor (72%).

Whether you’re a start-up medical device company, a fast-growing molecular diagnostic provider, or an established hospital ancillary laboratory or pathology practice, you may find outsourcing some or all of this critical functionality helps your organization perform better. For some, that means beginning with fully outsourced billing services and transitioning later to in-house billing once the team and the processes to handle these critical functions are in place. For others who have been handling billing services in-house for years, it can make sense to outsource their billing so that they have more flexibility in managing staffing and other related expenses.

As the Black Book survey shows, hospitals are one such group that stands to benefit from a shift to outsourcing. According to the survey, 90% of hospital leaders are continuing to evaluate whether to work third-party vendors for cost-efficiencies in both clinical and nonclinical functions and allowing hospitals to focus on value-based programming.

Outsourcing technology, financial services, and facilities management services have been long established ways for hospitals to transfer day-to-day administration of noncore functions to outside vendors.

“For hospitals in financial danger with margin pressures placing the entire hospital workforce at risk, positively attacking margin by outsourcing one or more areas can actually save jobs in other core departments,” said Doug Brown, President of Black Book Research.

XiFin’s Outsourcing Solutions

XiFin RPM outsource clients receive complete billing and revenue cycle management support from a dedicated outsourcing billing group currently processing nearly $9 billion in gross laboratory claims. The XiFin outsource billing team uses the best practices XiFin has developed working with many of the nation’s leading labs. XiFin brings this collective intelligence to each outsource client’s processing or claims to minimize denials and optimize cash collection.

XiFin outsource clients have the flexibility to move between delivery options should their business needs change. For example, a client may choose to start with an outsource model and quickly move to in-house billing and collection when they have the staff in place to take it on. Likewise, a current in-house XiFin RPM client may choose to move to the outsource service model if they need more flexibility in their staffing.

Black Book Research has ranked XiFin No. 1 in 2019 for laboratory support and RCM outsourcing.

Find the Right Company

According to survey authors, organizations are doing a much better job in assessing the need for outsourcing and selecting appropriate outsourcing vendors, but many executives still fail at managing the outsourcing relationship through critical clinical, financial and operational performance indicators.

“It is a matter of finding the right company to partner with,” said Brown. “Through research, peer recommendations and due diligence on the firms being considered.”

To learn more about revenue cycle management and laboratory information system solutions, visit our XiFin RPM product page, follow XiFin on Twitter and LinkedIn, or subscribe to the Beyond Billing Blog.