Patients who may avoid paying medical bills because of confusion over what they owe and what the insurance company will pay may benefit from a new online payment tool.
Simplee has created a free service in which consumers can pay all of their medical bills from one health-management account using their debit or credit card, the Web-based health care expense-management provider announced Sept. 26.
“We are trying to create smart consumers in health care by simplifying this process, so we feel this is a great mission to go after, considering the average person is now paying $3,000 a year out of pocket in health care expenses,” Simplee CEO Tomer Shoval tells PaymentsSource.
The new application combines the bill from a medical provider with the explanation of benefits from the insurance carrier to make it easier for consumers to review and understand what they owed after receiving an insurance claim, Shoval says.
After consumers sign up for the Simplee service and gain access through a password, the company obtains all of their pertinent insurance information, including details about their medical providers. The consumer indicates which debit or credit card to use to make payments, Shoval explains.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Simplee, a subsidiary of Simplificare Inc., handles all of the payment processing to the medical provider. Providers become part of the Simplee platform through information provided by the insurance carriers and receive a letter from Simplee explaining the company will handle the patient’s payments, Shoval says.
Simplee intends to continue providing the service for free to consumers but will produce revenue through co-branding with insurance companies who advertise on the site, Shoval explains.
Eventually, Simplee may negotiate a commission from the medical providers based on the growth in claims that get paid, Shoval says.
Medical providers will benefit as more convenient payment systems are created to help consumers understand their bills and pay in a timely manner, Kunal Pandya, a senior analyst with Boston-based Aite Group, tells PaymentsSource.
“In the short term, systems like Simplee can produce a 3% to 4% reduction in bad debt at the provider level, and in the long term that could grow,” Pandya says.
In addition, the concept of a simplified system “will be greatly utilized in the next few years” in the health care payment market because more consumers are becoming savvy about how to use online payment options, Pandya contends.
Shoval would not disclose the number of users registered with Simplee but says the company’s secure data base already has compiled Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant data from 100,000 insurance claims and information from 50,000 medical providers.
A monthly newsletter keeps consumers informed, and emails alert subscribers about pending bills, Shoval adds.
Those who care for elderly parents are likely to find Simplee’s format useful in helping organize and pay medical bills, Pandya suggests.
“It’s a great service, but it is not a new idea, as a lot of payment gateways have similar services,” says Pandya, who wrote an Aite report in July about the growing health payment market (
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