PH eyes big chunk of $54-B US healthcare IT business

Philippine business outsourcing companies are set to conduct an international roadshow later this month as they target to corner a sizable share of the US market for healthcare information technology, which is seen to grow to $54 billion by 2015.

In a statement, the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) disclosed that the roadshow in four major cities in the United States was aimed at selling the Philippines as an offshore outsource location for healthcare IT.

“Healthcare IT and information management are areas where Filipinos can excel because of our wealth of professional doctors, nurses and clinicians and our proven expertise in voice services,” said CCAP president Benedict Hernandez.

The US Healthcare Reform Bill is expected to drive the robust growth as this measure will cover more than 40 million Americans who are estimated to be eligible for healthcare coverage. For a citizen to avail himself of healthcare benefits, he has to go through a tedious process of verification for eligibility, a service that can be outsourced to a company based offshore such as the Philippines.

Last year, the US government spent $3 trillion for healthcare, representing 17.3 percent of its GDP.

Hernandez stressed that offshore outsourcing was the most efficient way to manage the growing requirements of healthcare IT.

“In the next three years, four million new enrollees are expected to join the American healthcare system. This will further grow to 35 to 40 million by 2016,” added Josefina Lauchangco, president of the Healthcare Information Management Outsourcing Council of the Philippines (HIMOAP).

“We have an opportunity to build the Philippines as a differentiated brand of knowledge workers. This is an area that can withstand price wars” and shield the country from economic downturns,” Hernandez further noted.

Lauchangco thus urged local contact centers to gear up for their entry into the highly lucrative US healthcare IT outsourcing market, which comprised 60 percent of the global market for healthcare IT. CCAP has nearly 100 member-companies that account for 70 percent of contact center revenue in the Philippines.