Texas healthcare network, which increased operational efficiency 71%, highlights a better way

U.S. healthcare operations’ struggle to keep up with growing administrative demands is real. 

DHR Health, one of the biggest health systems in Texas, knows. It used to be one of them. 

The organization’s clinics and hospitals had been drowning in a sea of administrative work. Identifying, hiring and retaining local staff with the necessary skills had become unsustainable given the costs and slow hiring process. That increased pressure on DHR providers and patients.

Administrative complexity is widespread and creates risk for regulated industries

DHR, a large U.S. physician-owned healthcare system, was not alone in facing such challenges.

The American Hospital Association notes hospitals’ increasing administrative complexity. The AMA’s 2025 Cost of Caring report says the time hospitals spend on insurance claims increased 23% between 2022 and 2023, when hospitals spent $26 billion on managing insurance claims.

Administrative burdens and rising patient demand are also limiting the time that healthcare workers can spend on direct patient care, according to the McKinsey Health Institute. 

Yet while healthcare workers and providers are experts at serving patients, that doesn’t mean they are staffing experts or can deliver quality care when inundated with administrative work.

Recruiting and retaining local talent is difficult, costly and time-intensive

Adding to these challenges, requirements like the need to hire Spanish speakers can further decrease a healthcare providers’ ability to find appropriate talent locally. In Texas, where DHR operates more than 120 locations, nearly a third of the population speaks Spanish at home. Nonetheless, the organization had a hard time finding qualified bilingual administrative talent.

Then there’s the cost. Even in places like Texas, where the minimum wage remains at $7.25 per hour, healthcare organizations often need to pay close to twice that to hire locally.

What’s more, new hires frequently leave for jobs that pay a few cents or dollars more. 

I know this from experience. A hospital I helped run had 115% annual employee turnover; the average person stayed less than 10 months. If it takes two to four months to train someone, and they’re in the job for five to 10 months, you invest lots of time and money in a person only to see them leave. This traps you in a rinse-and-repeat cycle, limiting your ability to grow.

Doctors often get ensnared in the growing torrent of administrative work

Like so many healthcare providers, DHR was grappling with high administrative turnover, the challenge of recruiting qualified bilingual staff, and the slow, expensive, unpredictable nature of hiring locally. DHR also was facing daily bottlenecks with prior authorizations, scheduling and insurance verification. Meanwhile, messages and documentation were piling up in its EMR. 

Worse yet, DHR’s providers were spending hours on charting rather than on patient care, creating added work and stress for doctors and limiting the time they could serve people.

Doctors across the healthcare sector typically spend around 20-30% of their time on documentation, we found. That often prevents doctors from leaving the office until after dinner time or requires them to spend an hour or two at home working on documentation. This can compound the stress of an already highly demanding job and may lead to doctor churn.

Secure, remote workforce infrastructure improves doctor, patient and provider experiences

But when doctors and nurses can concentrate on caring for patients, they are happier and more likely to stay with their current employer. Patient experience is optimized, too. However, this hinges on the employer’s ability to effectively address administrative complexity and implement a secure, remote workforce infrastructure that’s designed for regulated industries. 

Such infrastructure is not just about staffing, outsourcing or marketplaces. Rather, it’s about outfitting providers with properly trained people, modern technology and secure environments to eliminate administrative overload, ensure compliance, increase operational efficiency, protect sensitive information and devices, and drive optimal outcomes for everyone involved.

Just look at what DHR has achieved by scaling its remote workforce infrastructure to support call handling, documentation, EMR messaging, insurance verification and prior authorizations:

• 20% reduction in administrative tasks
• 53% faster hiring time
• 71% increase in operational efficiency

The healthcare industry needs secure, remote workforce infrastructure more than ever

The trend is clear: Many providers, doctors and other staff are underwater with administrative work, and their attempts to staff up locally just haven’t been the lifesaver that they’ve needed.

The undertow is getting stronger as healthcare becomes increasingly complex. Just consider:

• California this year raised the minimum wage for healthcare workers.
• New federal legislation increases the frequency of Medicaid eligibility checks from once to at least twice a year. That means healthcare providers will need to do more frequent checks that patients are insured, requiring more of their administrative workforces.
• Ransomware and other cyberthreats are creating disruption and growing risk.

Organizations like DHR are on the front end of this, having positioned to move faster, become more efficient and prepare for the future. Meanwhile, others continue to fall further behind.