US President Barack Obama?s new healthcare bill, popularly called ObamaCare, may turn out to be a very lucrative business proposition for the Indian business process outsourcing sector. As reported by FE on Wednesday, industry association Nasscom expects that of the 20% growth in the outsourcing business, healthcare verticals will take the lead and grow four times faster than core verticals. This is indeed a great opportunity for Indian outsourcing companies to move up the value chain and tap the healthcare markets, not only in the US but also in other parts of the world that are facing an ageing population. As per the US plan, the $37 billion allocation for electronic healthcare records will mandate hospitals in America to pursue services like beta-testing, archival data conversion into compatible formats, and setting up new IT systems for clinical staff. To reduce costs, most of these services are expected to be outsourced and a major share of this business is expected to come to Indian BPOs. As the new regulation requires insurers to restructure their administrative costs to ensure that about 90% of the money is spent on actual wellness of the individual, companies will look at outsourcing. Moreover, as over 32 million more US citizens will now come under the healthcare system, it means insurers will have to deal with a growing customer base. This needs a stronger administrative framework and support system in the form of third-party administrators and technology partners, and a significant amount of business is expected to come from enrolments, claims processing and providing customer services with technology and tools to help insurance companies get more customer insights and price their products appropriately.
To meet the growing demand of healthcare outsourcing, Indian companies will have to build capabilities like hiring talented people and building infrastructure at comparative costs to stay ahead of the competition. Indian BPOs will have to be careful about privacy of personal health data and political sensitivities, and will have to work closely with American healthcare companies to understand local needs and regulations. The healthcare model will open up a new avenue of mixed-shore outsourcing that can be extended to other sectors like banking & financial services, telecom and engineering. Indian companies have already started developing a mixed-shore model and this can help partially neutralise the growing anti-outsourcing sentiments in the US against Indian companies.