The billing system, a business infrastructure called Information Currency Exchange, processes bills and disperses a patient's insurance information to all the parties involved. This includes the patient's insurance company, employer, physician, etc. From that point, the program determines how much the patient owes for the visit.
The program is supposed to operate much like an ATM machine. The patient makes a transaction and the results are instant. It also allows patients to determine who pays for their medical care and allows them to review their medical records.
Healthation is promoting its real-time billing system along with a health care administration software and infrastructure, AcceleHealth. To date, less than 30 physicians are utilizing the system across the nation. Experts, however, project the system will grow in popularity much like electronic records.
Healthation hopes the federal government will eventually sponsor the exchange responsible for processing payments. This isn't projected to take place, however, for another three to 10 years.