News: Majority of hospital leaders are considering outsourcing, survey finds

Ninety percent of hospital leaders are considering outsourcing both clinical and non-clinical functions to achieve cost-efficiencies and succeed in value-based care models, according to a Black Book survey.

Survey respondents agreed that value-based care models necessitate additional outsourced clinical services to free up resources for other activities, RevCycle Intelligence reported. Hospital and inpatient leaders are mainly concentrating their outsourcing efforts on diagnostic imaging service lines, the survey found. Respondents selected teleradiology and medical imaging equipment as the most popular areas for clinical outsourcing partnerships.

Past surveys, according to RevCycle Intelligence, showed that hospital leaders are vetting outsourcing partnerships for their financial functions as well. Eighty percent of hospital executives, boards, and senior managers in last year’s outsourcing user survey said they were considering full outsourcing of revenue cycle management by 2019.

Similarly, respondents in 2018 cited value-based care as the primary reason why they are vetting clinical and non-clinical outsourcing.

Respondents ranked cost savings and cost avoidance as the top reason for outsourcing clinical services in 2019. The reason beat out “expertise of outsourcing vendor,” which was the top reason for outsourcing in 2014 and 2009. In this year’s survey, the expertise of the outsourcing vendor came in second, according to RevCycle Intelligence.

Internal and external attitudes on outsourcing may be shifting as well, according to the survey. Roughly two percent of respondents felt outsourcing was an unthinkable option because of the expected reaction of staff, physicians, and the community, which was unchanged from a similar poll conducted by Black Book in 2017.

Outsourcing contracts, however, can now be structured to “not affect existing staff or may stipulate the retention of existing staff into the incoming outsourcing entity,” the survey stated.

Editor’s note: To read RevCycle Intelligence’s coverage of this story, click here. To read an ACDIS Q&A on outsourcing CDI staff, click here.