IP Library › Patent Application 14181166
Patent Application
App. No. 14/181,166

Financial Triage

Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US None
App. No.
14/181,166
Abstract

Front-end patient financial triage is provided, wherein various financial clearance checks may be processed prior to proceeding with a non-emergent patient encounter. A patient's credit history, historic payment information, and symptoms of his/her financial health, such as employment and income, family size, etc., as well as address and social security number verification may be utilized to help a health care provider determine if a patient may pay for health care services. A web-based configuration tool may be provided for allowing the health care provider to dynamically change rules that define cascading processes of a financial clearance transaction. A health care provider may be able to use this actionable financial information to make better up-front decisions about which financial category may be most appropriate for a patient. Embodiments may help to protect a health care provider's financial liability, reduce bad debt and preventable write-offs.

Claims (91)

1 . A method for providing front-end financial triage, the method comprising:

receiving inbound information;

applying a first rule of a set of rules to the received inbound information; and

determining one or more financial triage tasks to perform.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

sending a request to perform a financial triage task of the one or more determined financial triage tasks;

receiving a response;

applying a next rule of the set of rules to the received response; and

determining another one or more financial triage tasks to perform.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining one or more financial triage tasks to perform comprises determining whether to perform one or more of:

social security number validation;

address validation;

government-subsidized coverage eligibility;

charity eligibility;

propensity to pay analysis; or financing eligibility.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein performing address validation comprises verifying that an address is a deliverable address and verifying that a patient lives or has lived at the address.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving a modification to one or more rules of the set of rules.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein receiving a modification to one or more rules of the set of rules comprises providing a web-based interface and receiving a modification to a rule via the web-based interface.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving inbound information comprises receiving one or more of:

demographic verification data;

social security verification data;

coverage verification data;

credit report data;

income data;

family size data;

payment history data;

healthcare service estimate data;

healthcare provider data; or

healthcare service type data.

8 . A system for providing front-end financial triage,

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the one or more processors, the one or more processors operable to:

receive inbound information;

apply a first rule of a set of rules to the received inbound information;

and

determine one or more financial triage tasks to perform.

9 . The system of claim 8 , further comprising a configurator, the configurator operable to allow a user to dynamically change one or more rules of the set of rules.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the configurator is a web-based tool.

11 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processors are further operable to receive a change one or more rules of the set of rules.

12 . The system of claim 8 , wherein the one or more processors are further operable to:

send a request to perform a financial triage task of the one or more determined financial triage tasks;

receive a response;

apply a next rule of the set of rules to the received response; and

determine another one or more financial triage tasks to perform.

13 . The system of claim 8 , wherein in determining one or more financial triage tasks to perform, the one or more processors are operable to determine whether to perform one or more of:

social security number validation;

address validation;

government-subsidized coverage eligibility;

charity eligibility;

propensity to pay analysis; or

financing eligibility.

14 . The system of claim 8 , wherein in receiving inbound information, the one or more processors are operable to receive on one or more of:

demographic verification data;

social security verification data;

coverage verification data;

credit report data;

income data;

family size data;

payment history data;

healthcare service estimate data;

healthcare provider data; or

healthcare service type data.

15 . A computer-readable medium containing computer executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform a method for providing front-end financial triage, the method comprising:

receiving inbound information;

applying a first rule of a set of rules to the received inbound information; and

determining one or more financial triage tasks to perform, the one or more financial triage tasks comprising one or more of:

social security number validation;

address validation;

government-subsidized coverage eligibility;

charity eligibility;

propensity to pay analysis; or

financing eligibility.

16 . The computer-readable medium of claim 15 , further comprising:

sending a request to perform a financial triage task of the one or more determined financial triage tasks;

receiving a response;

applying a next rule of the set of rules to the received response; and

determining another one or more financial triage tasks to perform.

17 . The computer-readable medium of claim 15 , wherein performing address validation comprises verifying that an address is a deliverable address and verifying that a patient lives or has lived at the address.

18 . The computer-readable medium of claim 15 , further comprising receiving a modification to one or more rules of the set of rules.

19 . The computer-readable medium of claim 18 , wherein receiving a modification to one or more rules of the set of rules comprises providing a web-based interface and receiving a modification to a rule via the web-based interface.

20 . The computer-readable medium of claim 15 , wherein receiving inbound information comprises receiving one or more of:

demographic verification data;

social security verification data;

coverage verification data;

credit report data;

income data;

family size data;

payment history data;

healthcare service estimate data;

healthcare provider data; or

healthcare service type data.