Omega’s origin is a story of personal experience. Co-founders, Gopi Natarajan and Anurag Mehta, possess over 50 years of combined experience in the medical billing and healthcare industry. This experience includes running a billing company of over 1,000 people.
After various tenures in the US healthcare industry, they recognized a major problem in the industry; there was a major lack of support for the medical billing and healthcare payment systems.
Adopting an entrepreneurial mantra, the two set out to start their own company to solve the pain points of healthcare billing companies. Eleven years later, Omega Healthcare has risen to become the number one solution for US healthcare billing and revenue cycle management companies. The vision is to be the global leader in offshore healthcare business services and the global provider of choice.
Pradeep Chakraborty discusses the way forward with SV “Krish” Krishnan, COO, Omega Healthcare Management Services Pvt. Ltd. Excerpts:
BW: What is the current scenario of medical data management in India?
SV Krishnan: The healthcare industry has been observing a continuous shift both vertically and horizontally. A recent report from Springboard Research says that India is the fastest-growing health care IT market in Asia, with an expected growth rate of 25 percent. Studies say that the Indian medical technology industry is forecast to grow from US$2.7 billion in 2008 to US$14 billion in 2020.
In India, though a few hospitals so far have understood the importance of medical data management and coding, still, the larger part of the market remains untouched. With advancements in sector, there is a dire need to maintain a centralised system for digitization of medical records.
Having said this, the Indian health care IT market is seeing a slow yet steady increase in demand for models such as:
* Standard hospital information systems (HIS)
* Picture archiving and communication system (PACS)
* Remote installation services (RIS)
* Electronic medical records (EMR)
* Clinical systems.
We are optimistic that with initiatives like Digital India, soon the Indian healthcare industry will see a boost in adoption of medical data management.
BW: What are the challenges and the future outlook to medical coding industry in India?
SV Krishnan: While the Indian healthcare IT market – which is currently valued at US$ 1 billion – is expected to grow around 1.5 times by 2020, it does have its share of challenges, both observed and anticipated.
In rural areas, most patients’ first point of health consultation is at small clinics where maintenance of digital records is not a priority because of the initial investments required and, often, lack of expertise to operate such systems.
On top of that, there is the hurdle of a general lack of awareness regarding the benefits of having a centralised database of medical records – a spin off from the thin dependency of stakeholders in such systems.
Finally, the health and insurance conjunct in our country is weak, penetration minimal, and nowhere nearing the levels of maturity evident in the U.S. and other developed markets.
The combination of these factors means that medical coding and medical billing remain domains that have large scope for development, since they are downstream of complex factors of not insubstantial magnitude that will need to find traction across the length and breadth of the country, and touch the vast majority of 1.3 billion people that have not been delivered into the medico-insurance complex.
Yet, challenges of infrastructure, political buy-in, systemic change, and roll-out will slowly evaporate and the continuous development in the healthcare segment will act as a key driver to medical coding in India, helping India to likely emerge as a dominant hub for data solution services and management, due to a joining at the hip with ITeS (Information Technology Enabled Services) and KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) making huge strides in other industries here.
Since the closely-parallel technologies and the related skills are already being leveraged by many companies in India, it is not too much of a stretch to expect them to be extrapolated into the healthcare realm once it begins gaining ground. Globally-accepted medical coding standards that are already benchmarking offshore operations here for multinational customers will simply ease the process.
BW: What is the need of medical coding and digitization of medical records in India?
SV Krishnan: An Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a collection of the various medical records that are generated when an individual visits a clinic/hospital.
When implemented, EHRs will help standardise the capture, storage and retrieval of a patient’s healthcare information and boost research and demographic insights by government and private healthcare organisations These records will also help maintain privacy and confidentiality of such critical information.
EHRs are the basic building blocks toward digitization of healthcare With the advent of technology, the government’s Digital India initiative, the increase in advanced medical facilities across the country, the rise of self-care and increasing use of homecare devices, the volume of useful healthcare data that will be generated in the near future is bound to increase exponentially.
Such data, when utilised in the right manner can help in better analysing health indicators and improve the overall healthcare services provided.
As seen in sophisticated medical and insurance mechanisms functioning around the globe, medical coding becomes the via medium for the engagement. Often this is either legislated by government (the HIPAA act in the US, for example) or mandated through such protocols as the ICD-10 or International Classification of Diseases, authored by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Such standards help glue together an effective system that puts all of the players on the same page.
In India, the Union Health Ministry has recently issued new standards and guidelines for implementation of interoperable electronic health records (EHR). When implemented across the country, the need for medical coding is also definitely bound to increase.
BW: What has been recent development at Omega Healthcare in terms of business operations and plans? What is the expansion plan as of now? Also, please highlight about the WhiteSpace acquisition.
SV Krishnan: Omega Healthcare Management Services Pvt Ltd currently has its presence in Bengaluru, Chennai, Trichy and Bhimavaram. Overseas, we operate in Manila and Cebu in the Philippines. We have been constantly maintaining a CAGR of 30-35 percent, and look to expand our business in tandem. We are keen to explore geographical strengths in India and take our operations to other cities as well.
We recently acquired WhiteSpace Health – a US-based healthcare analytics company with a development facility in Hyderabad.
WhiteSpace Health’s guided business intelligence platform enables better patient outcomes and improved financial performance using advanced data analytics. This cloud-based platform unlocks the data asset value by integrating data from multiple sources including call center, patient portals, Electronic Health Records(EHR), Practice Management Systems (PMS) and billing systems.
