More hospitals are planning to outsource coding efforts in the coming year, according to a new survey published by Black Book Rankings.

The study surveyed 650 IT and physician leaders, finding that 47 percent expect to outsource
their coding efforts by October 1, 2015, the deadline for switching from ICD-9 to ICD-10. Meanwhile, 51 percent of respondents said they’ll be ready to implement ICD-10 without outsourcing.

According to the survey, 19 percent of professionals surveyed already outsource their coding
work.

Researchers said a lack of in-house IT expertise, growing need to integrate systems and pressure to meet both Meaningful Use criteria and ICD-10 are causing more hospitals to outsource. The global IT healthcare outsourcing market is expected to hit $50.4 billion by 2018.

“We still operate in an ICD-9 world, complicated by [electronic health record] implementations,
value-based reimbursement models, compliance issues and optimizing reimbursement; a perfect storm from which outsourcers have the expertise to shield their clients.

From a financial standpoint, hospitals are actually seeing gains by outsourcing. In fact, 88
percent of the more than 200 bed hospitals surveyed, said they’ve realized at least $1 million
from growth in appropriate revenue and proper reimbursements due to outsourced coding efforts, even prior to ICD-10 implementation.

Thanks to Bill Finerfrock, Matt Reiter, Lara Burt, Cassy Perkins and Carolyn Bounds for contributing this article.