Universal Patient Payment Gateway Aggregating Medical Bills
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for patients to pay their share of medical bills are inefficient, requiring multiple payments to different healthcare providers, often involving time-consuming account setups and lack of aggregation systems for patient-responsible portions of medical bills (PRPMBs).
Innovation Solution
A universal patient payment gateway system that allows patients to make PRPMB payments on one website or through one interface, using a unique patient identifier and smart tags, aggregating payments across multiple healthcare providers and facilitating secure, consistent, and efficient transactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If patients pay each healthcare provider separately through individual websites, then each provider receives their payment, but the patient must repeatedly set up accounts and make multiple separate transactions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple separate payment transactions into a single unified payment gateway. The system aggregates billing information from multiple healthcare providers and allows the patient to make one consolidated payment that automatically distributes funds to all providers, eliminating the need for multiple separate transactions and account setups.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a payment gateway as an intermediary system between patients and healthcare providers. This gateway acts as a mediator that receives payment from the patient, processes the transaction, and automatically distributes the appropriate amounts to multiple providers, simplifying the payment process for the patient.
2Productivity
If a clearing house system exists for insurance payments, then insurance payments are aggregated efficiently, but no such aggregation system exists for patient-responsible portions of medical bills
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal payment gateway that handles multiple functions: aggregating billing information from various providers, processing patient payments, and distributing funds to multiple recipients. This multi-functional system serves as a comprehensive solution for collecting patient-responsible portions across different healthcare providers.
3Reliability
If patients must visit individual provider websites to pay, then direct payment to each provider is ensured, but the process lacks uniformity and consistency across different entities
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the payment process into distinct functional components: a unified interface for patients, an aggregation layer for billing information, a processing layer for transactions, and a distribution layer for fund allocation to providers. This segmentation maintains reliability for each provider while providing uniformity in the patient experience.
Data Source
AI summary
Gateways for patient-responsibility portions of medical bills (PRPMB) transactions, regardless of healthcare provider or merchant services (Credit card processing) provider are disclosed. These principles provide uniform, consistent and secure devices, methods and systems that allow a patient to make PRPMB payments on one website or by one phone call or physical address regardless of the entity that is due payment, or when multiple entities are due payment.