High billing costs and staffing shortages in the revenue cycle may be encouraging growth in a specific area: medical billing outsourcing.
As automation and outsourcing is taking hold of various tasks within the revenue cycle, billing is no exception.
According to the recent study published by Future Market Insights, the medical billing outsourcing market is anticipating record growth for 2022.
The market is anticipated to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 16% from 2022-2032, and by the end of 2032, medical billing outsourcing is expected to reach a valuation of $55.6 billion, the report said.
The report explained that the pandemic has highlighted the significance of adopting proactive actions and establishing a strong, collaborative, and reactive digital healthcare infrastructure.
"As a result, in order to enhance market development, numerous organizations are adopting methods such as digitization and outsourcing of all non-core areas of their operations, such as invoicing and accounting. The rapid move to digital billing is directly related to the growing demand for the medical billing outsourcing market," it said.
This information comes amid reports of high medical billing costs and staffing shortages for the revenue cycle.
In fact, medical billing and insurance-related costs in the U.S. are higher than in other countries, and this stems from our complex coding structures, according to a study published in Health Affairs.
According to the study, although most countries use ICD-10, the U.S. has a very different coding process from other countries which is driving up medical billing costs.
On top of high billing costs, workforce shortages have been a major challenge for healthcare leaders and the revenue cycle in particular is in serious need of staffing.
More than 57% of health systems and hospitals have more than 100 open roles to fill, with one in four finance leaders needing to hire more than 20-plus employees to fully staff their revenue cycle departments, according to a recent survey.
Between these staffing shortages and high medical billing costs, its logical that medical billing outsourcing is seeing such an increase.
Amanda Norris is the Director of Content for HealthLeaders.