Scotland’s Craneware sticks to singular focus on US market#Scotlands #Craneware #sticks #singular #focus #market

Craneware, which has today unveiled a 5% increase in revenues for the year to June 30, falls firmly into the latter category. Though founded in Edinburgh in 1999 the company has from the outset concentrated on selling its healthcare billing software in the US, and chief executive Keith Nielson sees no reason to stray from that strategy.

“We can justify being in the market we are in,” he said when asked about venturing further afield. “Just on our customer base alone, there is more than half a trillion dollars on their operational costs, so there is a lot we can try and make more efficient and more effective for them in that respect.”

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With the Covid health emergency officially over and inflation in the US back to “more manageable” levels, Mr Nielson said Craneware’s customers are beginning to think again about long-term solutions to bring down costs in that country’s notoriously expensive healthcare system. Indeed, management consultancy group McKinsey is predicting annual growth of up to 19% in the coming years for Craneware-type solutions, backing up expectations for the Scottish company’s return to double-digit growth.

Healthcare is the third-largest industry in the United States, worth an estimated $808 billion (£618bn) in 2021 and growing. According to Mr Nielson that represents about half of the global market, with Craneware’s products being used in about 40% of US hospitals.

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Craneware provides software solutions for billing and auditing, one of the biggest cost components in the US system which ranks higher than anywhere else in the world for healthcare spending. The array of usage and billing requirements makes expensive administrative help a necessity, with products such as Craneware’s Trisus applications marketed as a cheaper and more accurate way of handling this workload.

“So still our focus is on the US,” Mr Nielson said. “Going anywhere outside of that is just going to dilute our efforts.”