THE global health-care business process outsourcing (BPO) market sis projected to reach US$316.9 billion by 2030, up from US$178 billion in 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.6 per cent over the period 2022-2030, market researchers including marketwatch.com state.

Subsectors which are prominent are medical manufacturing services, non-clinical services, research and development services, analytics and fraud management services, billing and accounts management services, claims management services, as well as HR services, the researchers state.

Lynda Langford, senior director and country leader at Conduent Jmaaica, shared that the segment is seeing growth. She told the Jamaica Observer, “Today, Conduent touches three out of every four health-insured lives in the US. This scale makes us well-positioned to compete for a meaningful share of the projected global growth in business process outsourcing services.”

Langford added, “Our sustained investments in talent development and operations across Jamaica allow us to complement over 30 years of BPO experience with a highly skilled local workforce that understands the US health-care industry and its consumers, putting Conduent at an advantage in a growing global sector.”

Recently the US company, which at last count employs over 4,000 Jamaicans, rolled out new solutions based on health technology which facilitate easier management of electronic health records and a new health data management and analytics platform.

The company indicates that Conduent health-care clients reach 75 per cent of the insured population in the US and span providers, payers, pharma life sciences and government health organisations.

The Mayo Clinic, in an article published in November 2021 entitled ‘The high stakes of outsourcing’, notes that outsourcing first made its mark in the 1980s in manufacturing industries, but the practice ballooned in health care in the early 2000s. In 2017 alone, outsourcing grew by 36 per cent in the US health-care sector.

The writers state, “The basic rationale for outsourcing, in both health-care and non health-care settings, is to partner with firms that offer expertise and economies of scale. The aims are often to lower costs, raise productivity, and improve quality.”

The search for savings is also due to government action, which has cut reimbursement for some health services.

For example, a provision of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act, which took effect in 2018, cut reimbursement for routine lab tests by 30 per cent over a three-year period, leading many health systems (especially smaller ones) to explore outsourcing their laboratory services.

Outsourcing in health care, the Mayo Clinic outlines, initially evolved in areas of non-direct patient care, such as information technology and revenue cycle services, with virtually every US hospital using outsourcing for at least one business function as of 2020.

Mayo commented, “Outsourcing in health care is therefore best suited to services that do not directly affect patient care. Health-care entities must be especially judicious about transferring control of clinical quality to other organisations without strong evidence of their clinical expertise, commitment to patient-centred service and safety, and compatibility as partners in delivering high-quality care.”