Since several companies started to transfer work abroad like back-office work, accounting and data processing, health-care firms are now shipping clinical services and even decision making when it comes to medical care abroad specifically countries like the Philippines and India. Nowadays, the job that being shifted involves pre-service nursing, where in nurses are being hired by the insurance firms and their tasks is to provide the needs of their patients and wrap up some ways to treat their illnesses. Outsourcing these kind of work serves as a big help for health-care companies especially in meeting its demands in a short period of time, specifically, health-care firms hired out some health experts overseas.
However, the new outsourcing that contribute to the failure of numerous domestic health jobs is carried out for financial purposes. In detail, outsourcing of nursing tasks seems to be the most unusual and at the same time the most precarious jobs being transferred. WellPoint Inc. is the center of that innovation, they are one of the huge health insurers and chief of the largest for-profit medical insure in California, the Anthem Blue Cross. During the year 2010, Wellpoint established a distinct business unit that aims to achieve other cost-saving ways and advanced outsourcing strategies, and this is called the Radiant Services.
A company spokesman stated that since last 18 months, WellPoint Inc. has dropped hundreds of jobs in the U.S. and transferred jobs abroad. Wellpoint’s transferring of health-care jobs abroad serves as a small part of outsourcing and carried out by Radiant as it has technical prowess and can guarantee conformity with laws said by Kristin Binns, spokesman of WellPoint. Nevertheless, nursing organizations were very vigilant about this trend. A spokesman for the California Nurses Association, Chuck Idelson said that the trend is very alarming. There are also some issues as it needs certification for those who studies and measures health details, nursing experts said.
Companies were progressively searching for health-care jobs that could be outsourced anywhere as they encounter cost flaws and also they are looking for some innovation to do the business. Outsourcing restricted to IT and administration functions, Health Net Inc., that lays off hundreds of their accounting and information technology staff whose work is being outsourced to India. In the presidential campaign of President Barack Obama, outsourcing jobs overseas has been a furious topic. In the previous years, American manufacturers rebuilt some jobs in the U.S. as labor expenses have increased in different places like in China.
While some experts claimed that outsourcing jobs overseas can help U.S. firms by gaining more profit and allowing them to adopt in global talent and capabilities. As U.S. firms are powerful, more chances will exist for American employees. Almost 30 percent can save by the U.S. health-care firms as they outsourced in places with low-labor costs like in the Philippines. However, the trend stays controversial, as U.S. unemployment rate continues to increase by approximately 8 percent. The state government officials and the company managers were supporting secure federal trade-assistance benefits for WellPoint staff who have removed on their jobs due to outsourcing.
REFERENCES:
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/top-news/30484-us-health-firms-outsource-jobs-to-phl
http://www.bpap.org/media-room/it-bpo-industry-news/499-us-health-firms-outsource-jobs-to-phl
http://globalizationtoday.com/us-health-firms-outsource-jobs-to-phl-business-mirror/
