Chennai: Having grown from three employees to 3,300, Global Healthcare Billing Partners Private Ltd, which has completed 20 years of operation, plans to expand its employee-base and put up a 1,000-seater facility employing more than 1,000 workers within the next six months in India.
The medical billing and coding firm has office at four locations in India (Vepery, Velacheri, Vellore and Baroda), one in Philippines and three in the US and caters to clients based in the US. For expansion, it eyes Fortune 500 companies from the US and West Asia.
On what lies ahead for the company, president Vishal Jain said, “We are looking to double the employees’ size in the next 3-5 years. We are looking for newer avenues where we can pick up talent and train them. We are seeing an annual growth of around 25 per cent from the existing clients and we plan to focus on some Fortune 500 companies which will give a little more bump to reach our targets.”
Additionally, the company works around technology to bring down errors by developing new tools. Asked about the importance of innovation and research, the president said, “Innovation is of paramount importance to us because we keep finding the mistakes or errors in the same process and create technology around it to minimise errors. We do not want another claim to be denied as we probably do 100 million claims a year. Our outlay for research is Rs 5 crore per annum and for the next few years we would continue to spend on technology and innovation. The company uses a lot of artificial intelligence and robotic processes in the organisation for quality control measures so that we can identify human errors. We are able to finish a simple task using bots instead of manually filling the documents.”
Asked why the company does not have clients in India, Vishal said, “The insurance model works best in the US and the insurance market is very well-developed. In India, it is not. We expect transparency in processing the claims, expansion of insurers’ base and claim limits. Once it develops in India, we can probably start here as well.”
In several cases, USA is tagged as the role model and many countries try to adopt the same system. Asked if it would cater to the local needs, Vishal Jain has a two-fold answer: “With respect to healthcare, the US has dramatically improved and their market is more mature than any other place in the world which is the reason why several countries try to copy the model adopted in USA. From innovation and research point of view, we need the US model where they allocate funds for research and development. However, the US model does not suit if one wants to provide basic care to the general population for which the Indian system works well. We need to have a mixed approach.”
On the importance of Chennai with respect to business expansion, “Chennai happens to be the ITeS hub and we have strategic locations. So, it is very much game. Loyalty towards work is high and work culture is appreciable in the city.”