“Network-Based Marketplace Service Pricing Tool For Facilitating Purchases Of Bundled Services And Products” in Patent Application Approval Process (USPTO 20220222751): Mdsave Shared Services Inc.

2022 AUG 03 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent application by the inventors Aipperspach, Ryan (San Francisco, CA, US); Ketchel, Paul (Nashville, TN, US); Martirosyan, Kar (Pleasant Hill, CA, US); Osborne, Ani (Franklin, TN, US); Schmidl, Daniel (Albany, CA, US), filed on November 13, 2020, was made available online on July 14, 2022, according to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx correspondents.

This patent application is assigned to Mdsave Shared Services Inc. (Brentwood, Tennessee, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to the marketing and facilitating the sale of services and products. More specifically, exemplary embodiments relate to methods and apparatuses for providing a web-based mechanism allowing prospective patients to search for and compare healthcare services and products offered by local providers, including bundled sets of services, and facilitating prepaid purchases of such healthcare services and products by prospective patients at discounted rates.

“The price of healthcare services varies depending on specialty, procedure, and physician practice. In the United States, many patients do not have access to a simple way to shop and compare the price of common medical procedures. Due to the current managed care based payor system in the US, the cost of treatment is often determined by managed care organizations.

“These managed care organizations have specific formularies for drugs and procedures designed specifically to patients’ individual health plans, which restrict the drugs and procedures available to patients in their particular plans. Patients have historically had no access to these price lists or formularies and have had very few tools to assist them in finding and comparing health care services or predetermining the cost of a procedure. Currently prospective patients who chose to compare medical costs are forced to conduct extensive, often inefficient, and time consuming research to compare medical procedures prior to treatment.

“The rising cost of healthcare is having a dramatic effect on the U.S. healthcare system. Healthcare costs continue to outpace pace inflationary growth, provider reimbursement rates continue to fall, and the cost of patient insurance premiums are increasing. To lower monthly premium costs, many patients are choosing to purchase (and employers are choosing to offer) high deductible health plans as an alternative to traditional higher premium PPO health plans.

“These high deductible plans require patients to pay cash payments for medical services until the high deductible is satisfied, and once this deductible has been met, the insurance carrier begins to cover medical costs. As a result, many patients are seeing exponential increases in out-of-pocket expenses for medical procedures and services. In addition to more patients selecting high deductible plans, many patients cannot afford increased payments and are becoming uninsured or underinsured. As the number of patients who are uninsured, underinsured, or on high deductible plans grows, the need for a mechanism that allows patients to find discounted medical services increases and an efficient payment system.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent application, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “Exemplary embodiments of the present invention are related to an apparatus for facilitating purchases of services offered by service providers. The apparatus includes an application server providing a network service that is accessible to a plurality of users through a plurality of client systems communicatively coupled to the application server via a network and a data storage system storing a service offer database that is maintained by the application server.

“The service offer database comprises a plurality of service offer information records respectively associated with a plurality of service offers. The plurality of service offers includes at least one service offer for a bundled set of services. Each service offer information record comprises an indication of a primary service of the associated service offer, a purchase price for the associated service offer, a payment amount for the primary service, and compensation information for the primary service. Upon receiving purchase information for the user for purchasing the selected service offer from the client system, the network service is operable to issue a request to the funding source for funds corresponding to the purchase price included in the service offer information record associated with the selected service offer to process a purchase of the selected service offer by the user.

“In exemplary embodiments, each service offer for a bundled set of services comprises a bundled set of healthcare services provided by corresponding healthcare service providers.

“In exemplary embodiments, at least one service offer information record associated with a service offer for a bundled set of services further comprises an indication of a facility for performing the primary service, a facility fee for the facility, and compensation information for the facility fee.

“In exemplary embodiments, at least one service offer information record associated with a service offer for a bundled set of services further comprises an indication that at least one of the secondary services associated with the primary service is an optional secondary service.

“In exemplary embodiments, the data storage system stores a profile database that is maintained by the application server. The profile database comprises a respective account information record for each of a plurality of user accounts registered with the application server. The plurality of user accounts includes a plurality of customer accounts and a plurality of provider accounts. The account information record for each user account comprising information for authorizing a user accessing the network service from one of the client systems to access the network service in association with the user account.

“In exemplary embodiments, the plurality of provider accounts includes a plurality of physician accounts and a plurality of practice group accounts, the account information record for each practice group account comprises an indication of one or more of the physician accounts being affiliated with the practice group account.

“In exemplary embodiments, the data storage system stores a transaction information database that is maintained by the application server. The transaction information database comprises a respective purchase information record for each processed purchase, by a user accessing the network service from one of the client systems in association with a customer account, of a service offer that has been created by a user accessing the network service from one of the client systems in association with a provider account, the respective purchase information record for each processed purchase comprising an indication of the service offer information record associated with the purchased service offer and, for each of the primary service and any secondary service of the service offer, and an indication of whether the purchase has been redeemed with respect to the service.

“In exemplary embodiments, the network service, upon being accessed by a user of one of the client systems to process a purchase of a service offer, generates a voucher for the user that specifies a unique confirmation number for the purchase and the corresponding service provider for each of the primary service and any secondary service of the purchased service offer, and, for each of the primary service and any secondary service of the purchased service offer, sets the purchase information record for the processed purchase to indicate that the purchase has not been redeemed with respect to the service.

“Exemplary embodiments of the present invention that are related to computer-implemented processes and computer systems corresponding to the above-summarized exemplary embodiments directed to an apparatus are also described and claimed herein.

“The above-described and other features and advantages realized through the techniques of the present disclosure will be better appreciated and understood with reference to the following detailed description, drawings, and appended claims. Additional features and advantages are realized through the techniques of the present invention. Other embodiments and aspects of the invention are described in detail herein and are considered a part of the claimed invention.

“The detailed description explains exemplary embodiments of the present invention, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings, in which similar numbers refer to similar parts throughout the drawings. The flow diagrams depicted herein are just examples. There may be many variations to these diagrams or the steps (or operations) described therein without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added, deleted, or modified. All of these variations are considered to be within the scope of the claimed invention.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory configured to be operably coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises encoded processor executable program instructions and data, wherein said instructions and data program and configure the processor that when executed by the processor cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising: in response to receiving payment for a healthcare service pre-paid at a price based on the location at which the service will be performed: generate a purchase data record redeemable by a user to receive the pre-paid healthcare service; and apply the pre-paid amount to the user’s health insurance deductible.

“2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the healthcare service further comprises a service bundle.

“3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise create a virtual funds account for the user.

“4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the payment further comprises virtual funds.

“5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the virtual funds payment is received from the user’s virtual funds account.

“6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the virtual funds account balance further comprises promotional credit.

“7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise the deductible amount determined as a function of the user’s insurance policy.

“8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise compare the price to the remaining deductible.

“9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the price is determined based on the user’s capacity to pay.

“10. An apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory configured to be operably coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises encoded processor executable program instructions and data, wherein said instructions and data program and configure the processor that when executed by the processor cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising: present a plurality of healthcare services to a user in a shopping cart format for service selection by the user based on the location and time at which the service will be performed; receive an indication of a service bundle selected for purchase by the user from the shopping cart; determine an undiscounted price for the selected service bundle; determine the user’s remaining deductible amount based on the user’s insurance; generate a discounted price for the selected service bundle based on the user’s remaining insurance deductible amount; and in response to receiving payment of the discounted service bundle price: generate a purchase data record identified by and with a unique confirmation number, wherein the purchase data record is selectively redeemable using the unique confirmation number to receive any particular service of the purchased service bundle individually; apply the amount paid to the user’s health insurance deductible; and transmit the unique confirmation number to the user.

“11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the payment further comprises virtual funds.

“12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the payment further comprises real currency.

“13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the payment further comprises promotional credit.

“14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise receive the unique confirmation number presented with a request for the purchased service.

“15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise determine the purchase data record redemption status.

“16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise indicate the purchase data record has been redeemed for the purchased service.

“17. An apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory configured to be operably coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises encoded processor executable program instructions and data, wherein said instructions and data program and configure the processor that when executed by the processor cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising: present a plurality of healthcare services to a user in a shopping cart format for service selection by the user based on the location and time at which the service will be performed; receive an indication of a service bundle selected for purchase by the user from the shopping cart; determine an undiscounted real currency price for the selected service bundle; determine the user’s remaining deductible amount based on the user’s insurance policy; generate a discounted virtual funds price for the selected service bundle based on the user’s remaining insurance deductible amount; and in response to receiving a virtual funds payment of the discounted service bundle price: generate a purchase data record identified by and with a unique confirmation number, wherein the purchase data record is selectively redeemable using the unique confirmation number to receive any particular service of the purchased service bundle individually; apply the amount paid to the user’s health insurance deductible; transmit the unique confirmation number to the user; in response to receiving a request to perform the any particular service of the purchased service bundle, wherein the request comprises the unique confirmation number: determine the purchase data record redemption status using the received unique confirmation number; and in response to a determination the particular service has been performed, indicate the purchase data record has been redeemed for the any particular service.

“18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the shopping cart further comprises a drug.

“19. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the service bundle further comprises a primary service, and a secondary service associated with the primary service.

“20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the payment further comprises payment for the secondary service.”

URL and more information on this patent application, see: Aipperspach, Ryan; Ketchel, Paul; Martirosyan, Kar; Osborne, Ani; Schmidl, Daniel. Network-Based Marketplace Service Pricing Tool For Facilitating Purchases Of Bundled Services And Products. Filed November 13, 2020 and posted July 14, 2022. Patent URL: https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220220222751%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20220222751&RS=DN/20220222751

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