Medic Computer Systems is testing a way for insurance patients to make their co-payments with a credit card. Medic's goal is to eliminate the $1.8 billion in bad debt for Medic's physician and hospital customers.
According to Medic's president of clinical products division, Alan Winchester, less than 2 percent of health care services are paid for by credit card. And, according to Winchester, "The collection problems in the medical area are horrendous," so Medic wants to shift the responsibility of collections on to the credit card companies. It seems Visa and MasterCard are receptive to the idea, as they have agreed to lower their discount to 2.3%, from 3.5%.
On a similar note, Medi-Check, one of California's largest Medical Services organizations providing software and hardware solutions for the authorization and billing of private medical insurance, has signed a contract with CrossCheck to sell CrossCheck's services to its customers. Medi-Check, which provides a large number of insurance related products, has contracted with doctors, clinics, hospitals and insurance carriers.
In each of the cases, the cost of co-pay collections and administrative cost will be transferred to an alternative payment vehicle at the time medical care is provided.
