Healthcare organizations face tight budgets, a continued need to increase productivity, lower costs, enhance technology, and reinforce IT infrastructure all while continuing to improve the healthcare consumer experience.

While building and implementing a strategy to holistically address each of these challenges may seem counterintuitive at first, using an as-a-Service process makes it possible to achieve across-the-board advancements and improvements for health plans.

Implementing as-a-Service Solutions

Making modifications like these is a challenge no matter the approach. But using an as-a-Service approach, designed to mitigate the issues that come with organizational change, can help improve overall acceptance.

On February 14, Sagilty hosted a webinar, “Reducing Costs & Driving Innovation through as a Service Healthcare Solutions.” At this session, we explored exactly how payers can use the as-a-Service model to quickly react to business changes, improve consistency across business units and ensure compliance with regulations. This model fully addresses the challenges faced by healthcare organizations.

During the event, Sagility experts detailed how member engagement, claims and provider data management could be upgraded using the as-a-Service framework.

The Sagility experts who participated and shared their expertise:

• Amitabh Singh, Chief Strategy and Practice Officer
• Sivarama Rambhatla, SVP and Global Head, Solutions
• Srikanth “Sri” Lakshminarayanan, SVP, Healthcare Practice

The group offered insights into as-a-Service programs in healthcare and how their use could drive cost reductions and help an organization innovate and build for the future.

Webinar Participant Questions

During the Q and A session, the presenters offered practical insights to help participants understand the model’s benefits and value.

Question: What is BPaaS? Answer: BPaaS is more than the sum of its parts when compared to traditional outsourcing services. BPaaS includes cloud-based technology, people and processes working together toward a common goal expressed by the health plan. BPaaS delivers holistic healthcare services using cloud-based platforms, creates end-to-end benefits to drive cost savings, enhances risk management, and provides access to innovative technology. Sagility’s programs are completely scalable and deliver substantial business outcomes, with up to 45% ROI compared to other Contact Center as a Service providers, for example.

Question: What are the benefits of implementing a BPaaS solution for provider data management?

Answer: Health plans can achieve multiple benefits when implementing Provider Data Management as a Service. The plan can consolidate processes, automate workflow and data comparison, and improve accuracy using analytics and business intelligence. Doing so reduces provider abrasion and helps build member satisfaction.

Question: What’s the best way to implement a BPaaS program?

Answer: Choose the journey that works best for your health plan. We’ve worked with organizations that wanted to experiment with Contact Center as a Service or Claims BPaaS before implementing additional services. They rolled out a pilot program that was expanded in the future. Many have found that adding more as-a-Service modules generates better operational and business results because of the holistic view the technology affords.

Question: What level of support do you expect from the health plan?

Answer: To implement a BPaaS solution, a high level of support is necessary. Typically, a health plan will assign a dedicated person or group to assist. This is important because we must build familiarity with the health plan’s existing technology and understand, at a granular level, all of the business needs and challenges. The health plan also must be highly active in rolling out a change management program for the project because BPaaS touches on areas throughout the health plan, and staff must be made aware of and become comfortable with the upcoming changes. Finally, engendering a trusting relationship between the partners is critical to long-term success.

Question: How long does it take to implement a BPaaS solution?

Answer: Implementations are not one size fits all. It depends on the complexity of the process, the type of health plan, member demographics, change management execution and other considerations. In general, however, an implementation takes six to 12 months.

Participants speak out on as-a-Service solutions

We asked webinar attendees questions about different as-a-Service topics to understand the current state of acceptance in the healthcare market and the challenges they see as most pressing.

What is a key driver for you to consider a Claims BPaaS solution?

• 0%: Access to better technology
• 33%: Reduction in per-claim cost
• 8%: Increase member/provider NPS
• 59%: All of the above

What are the most important components of an omnichannel CCaaS program?

• 7%: Scalability
• 7%: Seamless integration of digital assets
• 6%: Increased customer engagement
• 80%: All of the above

What is your organization’s BPaaS readiness?

• 14%: I would like to learn more about Claims BPaaS
• 0%: I would like to learn more about Provider Data Management as a Service
• 72%: I would like to learn more about Contact Center as a Service
• 14%: I am aware of BPaaS solutions and can make decisions on choosing a partner
• 0%: Not interested in as-a-Service solutions at this time