A New Medical Banking Ecosystem

Franklin, TN (April 3, 2008) Delegates conclude a 3 day meeting today with senior officials in banking and healthcare at the 6th National Medical Banking Institute. Calling attention to natural and man-made disasters, like the subprime mortgage crisis, MBProject’s founder John Casillas asked attendees “yet today, aren’t we faced with an even more compelling man-made disaster as we experience a ground swell in the rising costs of healthcare?” He challenged attendees to rally behind medical banking as a national strategy to mitigate a “financial tsunami” that is leaving more families destitute and undercutting national productivity. He asked leaders to build a “new medical banking ecosystem” to address an impending crisis in healthcare.

Other keynotes included an industry summary by Booz Allen Hamilton, a review of data privacy issues by the Joint Commission, (which issued a new report on quality measurement and data reporting), a review of ONC efforts to build a national healthcare information network by Jodi Daniel, senior advisor at ONC, and an industry panel entitled: Are Medical Banking Systems Ready for Prime Time?”. Today’s talks will feature an industry panel (Converting “Cybercondriacs” to HIT Wizards”) moderated by David Harris, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers who chairs the HSA Workgroup at MBProject. The panel features Microsoft HealthVault program, a personal healthcare record service, Best Doctors and OptumHealthBank. Dr. Paul Grundy from IBM, who chairs the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, will introduce bank delegates to the new Medical Home concept and seek their participation to change the healthcare payment systems.

A series of new industry announcements by MBProject Members were announced during the day, including:

• Fifth Third Bank announced a new partnership with GHN-Online and Revenue Management Solutions (RMS) to launch a new business intelligence platform for the healthcare industry.
• GHN-Online released a new healthcare reimbursement scorecard that measures “the average number of payment days for a clean claim from payors, extracted from the payors remittance advice reports.” The firm further announced a new relationship with Revenue Managements Solutions (RMS) to provide a “comprehensive claims processing and remittance solution for healthcare banking.”
• E-Duction announced that it has now processed over 1,000,000 “variable payroll deductions” using a “guaranteed issue credit, zero percent interest and automatic payment via payroll deductions that traditional credit cards don’t offer”. In a separate announcement, the firm announced that an independent market research firm rated users of the program and found that 81% are “highly satisfied”.
• The Bank of New York Mellon and The SSI Group, Inc., announced a new healthcare services alliance that will “enhance a range of end-to-end claims processing solutions” for healthcare clients. This includes “new lockbox services for patient and commercial insurance payments, conversion of paper transactions to electronic remittance advices (ERAs), establishment of ERAs and reassociation of ERAs with electronic payments, providing the industry an all-payer solution.”
• The Bancorp Bank announced that it is “aggressively pursuing a variety of strategies” in healthcare through 120 established relationships with a variety of clients nationwide; and listed its bank as one of the “Top 50” Origination Depository Financial Institutions (ODFIs) and one of the “Top 5” HSA Administrators in the nation.
• PNC announced that it is the first bank in the nation to receive EHNAC accreditation for its health care clearinghouse, lockbox and e-commerce operations. PNC was noted for its “extremely robust systems, policies and procedures” and a data center and disaster recovery documentation that was cited as “the best ever seen” by the independent site consultant.
• TransUnion announced a new patent for its Healthcare Revenue Cycle Platform (HRCP), “an ASP-based technology platform that determines, in real time, patient eligibility for financial assistance at point of registration.” Among other functions, the platform “pursues multiple financial assistance opportunities concurrently, providing significant labor savings to hospitals; reducing staff time spent gathering data and filing forms.”

A main focus of the Institute was on emerging privacy and security frameworks. MBProject announced a new medical banking “Gold Seal” standard “that instills public trust” among medical banking constituencies, “a key cornerstone for a new medical banking ecosystem”. A pilot program conducted by the Working Capital Solutions division of the Bank of New York Mellon and Milliman was previously announced. An afternoon session reported out industry results to attendees.

The complete press releases will be posted on the Institute Agenda at www.mbproject.org by April 11, 2008.

About the Medical Banking Project...
MBProject is a pioneering authority that coined the term “medical banking™” to denote the emerging global convergence of banking and healthcare systems to improve health costs, quality and access. Our educational forums, workgroups and pilot programs showcase visionary ideas and initiatives that inform policy, commerce and academia. Supported by a diverse constituency, MBProject conducts research and outreach that defines and facilitates medical banking™, and this supports our mission to convert digital savings into charitable resources. Our work demonstrates how banks can improve healthcare programs for consumers, care givers, health plans and employers. For more information please go to http://www.mbproject.org or contact Evelyn Marquez Sanchez, 615-794-2009,
[email protected]