The Ups and Downs Of Outsourcing For The Medical Clinic

Outsourcing is a common strategy used for specific purposes. Before dismissing the option to outsource or engaging it for some part of your operation, it bears investing some management time to evaluate what outsourcing can do for you and compared to your needs. Where these two match up reasonably well, outsourcing should be given serious consideration. One-time or infrequent tasks are among the best options for outsourcing.Payroll head count and its associated commitment for benefits and its restrictions on future staff reductions are important criteria to consider.Medical offices are often plagued by the need to keep costs down. They also have a long list of tasks which require specialized skills and significant experience with office procedures, office culture and patients. These are typically not good tasks to outsource.Interestingly, office management is an assignment that can be effectively outsourced for a short period of time. The reasons for doing so include:
1. looking for a new office manager,
2. to cover for a leave of absence,
3. significant review and change of office procedures.

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Managing a new project such as selecting and implementing new software is a project that can be considered for outsourcing. It can also be assigned in-house if you have a staff member with the skills and the time to manage a relatively large project. Don't confuse office management skills with project management skills or people management skills. They are not the same.Converting data from an old system into the new system is an excellent candidate for outsourcing regardless of the size or expertise of your IT staff. Data conversion work is highly specialized. For this reason many software vendors outsource data conversions. They do so to remove the distraction from the more important work of developing and updating their software.Many of the tasks in data conversion work are one time tasks which will not be repeated. Yet they require skills and experience not often possessed by an in-house IT staff.

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It does not make financial sense to spend the time and money to get an IT staff up to speed on these not-to-be-repeated tasks.As to payroll head count and restrictions on staff reduction I will leave that analysis to experts experienced in those areas. I mention them here as examples and to provoke the discussion around what else should be considered for outsourcing.What I do know about payroll costs is that an hourly or monthly wage does not compare directly to the hourly cost of a consultant. You need a fully loaded hourly cost for employees (add taxes, benefits, office space, etc. to wages) before making the direct comparison. To that you also need to add the cost of lost opportunity when staff is assigned a task outside their regularly assigned duties.Another note of caution. What works for one organization may or may not work for another. Goals and objectives are vitally important in this decision-making process. Culture and on-staff expertise need also be considered so long as we remember: "just because I can, does not mean I should".In summary, look at all factors not just the surface costs of outsourcing. Don't be distracted by immediate or urgent needs to the detriment of the long-term health and profitability of your business.