Chennai, Oct 4 (IANS): The US-based healthcare business process outsouring (BPO) group MiraMed Global Services is planning to acquire small, niche companies in the US and Britain for growth, while increasing its headcount in India and Philippines, said a group official.

The group's Indian outfit Ajuba Solutions India will be expanding its operations and increasing its head count by 2015, he said.

"In the US the group is looking at small companies operating in the healthcare payer vertical (insurers). We are looking at companies with a turnover of around $5 million. The group already has good experience in the healthcare provider (hospitals) space," director-operations, Ajuba Solutions told IANS here Saturday.

Ajuba Solutions offers revenue cycle management services (billing to collections) for the US hospitals.

According to Kumar the group is exploring the UK market and looking at all possible growth avenues - organic as well as inorganic.

He said the group is focusing on big data analytics in the US market.

Kumar said the healthcare reforms in the US brought in by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (popularly known as Obamacare) and the increased private delivery of healthcare in the UK offers good business potential for the group.

Under the Obamacare, more Americans will come under the healthcare insurance protection which augurs well for the players in industry.

He said the implementation of International Statistical Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10) from 2015 offers good business in the coding space in the US for the group.

According to Kumar the number of codes under ICD-10 has gone up to around 150,000 from around 25,000 codes in the ICD-9 version.

"Our approximately 1,000 experienced coders and nurses in India and Manila have received the highest level of training in anticipation of the ICD-10 rollout in 2015," Tony Mira, president and CEO, MiraMed and founder of Ajuba Solutions said in a recent statement.

Speaking of big data, Kumar said the group has developed an analytical tool which will be first offered to the clients and latter sold in the market as a product.

Globally, the healthcare vertical of MiraMed group has a head count of around 4,000 which is expected to go up by 1,000 next year.

In India Ajuba Solutions will increase its headcount by 500-600 to take the total to around 3,500 next year, Kumar said.

"We are also looking at other Indian cities for expansion. That will be decided next year. Our monthly attrition rate is around three percent," Hema Parikh, director, human resources told IANS.