How much of nursing can be outsourced to other countries?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geriatrics.

The answer seems obvious: not much, right? But I wonder.....

I've been doing long term care assessments for an insurance company for about the past year and a half. I'm an independent contractor and all of my dealings with the company have been telephonic. I was even hired over the telephone. They call me with an assignment, email me the paperwork and when it's completed I fax it back to them.

About 3 months ago, all of the regular schedulers were replaced with men with foreign accents who told me their names were "Mark" and "Alex" but the paperwork said differently. Today, my suspicions were confirmed when I called into the office and got a message that it was closed due to some holiday in India.

Now they couldn't possibly be saving that much money over what they were paying the ladies in the office but there you go: every penny counts, that's business. So how could this impact nursing?

Just yesterday, in another post someone was asking what their options were for nursing away from the bedside. I listed a lot of jobs, many of which were purely telephonic or office based. Since EMRs are mandated for all healthcare providers within the next couple of years, wouldn't that make it that much easier to move some of those jobs out of the country? And if so, what in the heck could we do about it? A lot of you are wondering about a few immigrants coming over her but what if the jobs leave here for over there? I'm just wondering....

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

Never forget that nursing can be "insourced" by recruiting foreign nurses to work at US hospitals.

In addition, many of these Indian call center workers hold advanced degrees, are highly educated, and usually earn an annual income of less than $5,000 USD, which is a major savings for the corporations that choose to outsource.

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Some people are actually sending their elderly relatives abroad for less expensive long term care. I read an article about a man who moved to India with his elderly parents and they weren't Indian; they rented a house, hired health care aides, servants, cooks. Luxury longterm care for a fraction of what it would be here. Nursing care and medical care also less expensive there but can be very very good. If you were ethnically Indian and had family over there it would be even easier. And the Japanese have been sending elderly parents abroad for some time.

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Someone I know said the insurance company they worked for was outsourcing their telephone work to India. My mortgage company did it. During a call to them I lost my patience with a rep that couldn't even accomplish my address change. One time I lost my healthcare job through downsizing, but I noticed a short time afterward that the employer had no problem outsourcing my nursing job to someone who was difficult to understand when they answered the phone. I agree that outsourcing healthcare is accomplished by hiring those from overseas. It was done in the past, and when retrogression is lifted, will pick up again. Nothing the rest of us can do about it.

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Specializes in Mostly: Occup Health; ER; Informatics.
In addition, many of these Indian call center workers hold advanced degrees, are highly educated, and usually earn an annual income of less than $5,000 USD, which is a major savings for the corporations that choose to outsource.

Just a point of data: For 2008-2009, there are 50,680 accredited BSN seats and 2,118 MSN seats in nursing schools across India.

Source: Indian Nursing Council, http://www.indiannursingcouncil.org/bsc_007.pdf

Those graduates could staff lots of outsourced utilization review, telephonic case management, telephone triage, informatics support, etc. RN jobs (assuming applicable state laws could be met...such as NCLEX license). Not that I am advocating it...I'm just saying that bedside isn't always all bad....

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geriatrics.
Those graduates could staff lots of outsourced utilization review, telephonic case management, telephone triage, informatics support, etc. RN jobs (assuming applicable state laws could be met...such as NCLEX license). Not that I am advocating it...I'm just saying that bedside isn't always all bad....

That's my point exactly. I don't know if there's anything we can do about it but it's something to think about and be aware of.

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Specializes in inpatient rehab (general, sci, tbi, cva).

All I can say is watch the House and Senate bills in your state. Most states require that RNs who do telephonic work be licensed in xx state or commonwealth.

I'd suspect most of these foreign nurses would have to be licensed in states where this is not the case. As a result, you'll see shifting of work to those states, and then shifting of work to whatever offshore country you want.

Insurance lobbies are some of the largest lobbying groups in most state houses.

Sure it seems like fiction right now, but I'd never say never...

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