November 2004 Newsletter

Patient Portal

By: Mary Jo Leskiw, VP of A/R Production, Partner

Through those web sites, www.MyDrBill.com and www.MyLabBill.com, patients will be able to obtain answers to questions about their medical bills, to submit corrections to their account information, and possibly to link to the client's web site or other sites of reference. The site will assure patients by presenting our client's brand, while meeting the same high standard of security and privacy given to PHI on all Quadax's web sites.

Patients accessing these web sites will be able to review their payment responsibilities online and navigate to the area or areas in question as they relate to the statement in general. Through the Explain My Bill option, the questions and answers would be generalized, neither patient- nor client-specific. We will report some of the more commonly-asked patient questions and the responses to those questions online.

Patients with personalized questions or account updates can pose them through the Correct My Bill option. Because this option will be patient account-specific, there will be secured informational requirements before it can be accessed. Patients must enter their account number and other forms of verification before access is granted. Once that account information is verified, patients will be given access to a menu of personalized transactions: to update their name or address, to modify or add insurance coverage, to confirm receipt of payment, to verify the mailing address for payments, to arrange a payment plan, to apply for hardship assistance, to pose account-specific questions, and so on. All information noted by the patient will result in a message on their account, and their request will be routed to the appropriate department via an interface with our HARP software.

We are also considering an ability to allow patients to pay their medical invoices online by means of a credit card, debit card or electronic check payment. At this time, we are exploring banks' ability to interface with our web site, so that the patient payments will be deposited directly into the respective client's banking accounts.

Our market research and discussions with banks suggest that we're pioneering this feature in the healthcare industry. That novelty, plus consideration of federal laws about security and accountability, will determine the timetable of this project.

Watch for more announcements regarding www.MyDrBill.com and www.MyLabBill.com to come in the near future. Meantime, feel free to e-mail me your thoughts and ideas.