From telecom to transport, IT to insurance—transforming one industry after another, automation shows no signs of stopping. The automation market is growing steadily, expected to increase its total size twofold to almost $400 billion in 2029. But how does this remarkable trend impact healthcare services?
Due to its human-centered nature, healthcare may not be the obvious target when considering automation candidates. However, umpteen non-medical background processes are behind every medical procedure and patient-doctor interaction, like insurance billing and coding, pre-authorization, or claims processing. All of them are well-suited for automation, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), in particular, is a great way to start small and take it from there.
Are you keen to learn about automation opportunities for medical providers? Read on and discover the most pressing challenges for healthcare workflow automation and how your office or practice can address them using RPA.
Learn more about using Robotic Process Automation in other industries, like RPA in insurance, retail, manufacturing, e-commerce, sales, logistics, real estate, or automation for consultancy.
Main challenges facing today’s healthcare industry
In addition to some global factors that affect every business sector (think COVID or skyrocketing gas prices), each industry has its pains to face. When it comes to healthcare, the following few are particularly prominent.
Staff shortages
This is a problem that hospital managers and healthcare HR specialists know all too well. The lack of professionals is nothing new (already, in the early 1990s, analysts raised concerns over the imminent nursing and hospital bed shortages). Still, the great resignation, pandemic, and ever-growing hiring expenses have only exacerbated the issue.
Unfortunately, things aren’t expected to take a turn for the better anytime soon. For example, the American Association of Medical Colleges projects a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2033. At the same time, 28% of nursing facilities remain understaffed.
That trend applies to non-medical personnel as well. Time and resources necessary to train revenue cycle professionals are some of the main reasons why 60% of healthcare finance leaders report having at least 100 vacancies. We’re looking at leaders here, meaning shortages may be even more severe for smaller providers.
High operational costs
With all the processes, resources, and specialists involved in each treatment, it’s hardly shocking that healthcare doesn’t come cheap. However, in recent years, operational costs have gone through the roof. A report by American Hospital Association points to four main culprits:
- Workforce expenses — at the peak of the Omicron upsurge, per-patient labor expenses were 57% higher than before the pandemic.
- Drug prices — expenses on drugs and medical supplies for each patient increased by 36% between 2019 and 2021.
- Supplies and PPE costs — some crucial resources, e.g., energy, resins, and cotton- increased by over 30% between 2020 and 2022.
- Inflation — higher prices affect costs and discourage patients from seeking treatment.
Denied and overdue claims
Is $25 a lot? That’s how much reworking a denied insurance claim costs on average. Even if this amount seems peanuts to you, multiply it by the monthly number of claims denied or overdue in your practice, and the sum of money leaking out may pile up fast. That’s where healthcare workflow automation comes in.
Preventing denied claim losses isn’t easy since the exact reason for claims issues may be tricky to pin down. Here are some of the most common ones:
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- medical coding errors,
- improper pre-authorization,
- missing information,
- duplicate claims,
- medical necessity requirements not met,
- missed deadlines.
Data deluge
The transition to EHR has ended many documentation challenges in healthcare. However, some issues have persisted in plaguing the industry still today. Do any of these sound familiar to you?
- Missing or incomplete documentation may negatively affect treatment, lead to negligence, legal action, and even result in patient death.