Patent Application Titled “Cpt Code Search Engine For Backend Bundling Of Healthcare Services And A Virtual Payment System” Published Online (USPTO 20220005098): Mdsave Shared Services Inc.

2022 JAN 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, a patent application by the inventor Ketchel, Paul J. (Nashville, TN, US), filed on September 15, 2021, was made available online on January 6, 2022.

The assignee for this patent application is Mdsave Shared Services Inc. (Brentwood, Tennessee, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Medical services are services provided to a medical patient. Some medical services may help improve or maintain a patient’s health, based on disease prevention, diagnosis, or treatment. The practice of medicine encompasses medical procedures performed for a patient, which may include both preventive care and treatment. Medical service providers include doctors, hospitals, and health insurers. A provider may offer medical services to patients by provisioning medical resources such as, for example, laboratory, imaging, treatment, or surgical facilities, to provide the services. Some medical services may require specially trained or licensed medical professionals. For example, a medical practice providing diagnosis and treatment for joint pain may provide medical services through the work of an orthopedic specialist. In some scenarios, patient access to a specialized professional or facility may be limited by cost, or availability. Some specialized medical professionals and related facilities may be scarce.

“In addition, 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.

“Finally, healthcare services may be necessary even when a patient does not have insurance or funds available to pay for a needed procedure. A patient may need more than one healthcare service in a medical emergency, even though they may not be able to pay. In some scenarios, a patient may accumulate significant financial debt owed to multiple healthcare providers. A person owing significant amounts of money for healthcare services that have already been performed, even though medically necessary, may have substantial difficulty obtaining further medial services due to their unpaid medical bills.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventor’s summary information for this patent application: “A current procedural terminology code, (“CPT-Code”) search engine for backend bundling of healthcare services and a virtual payment system. Various implementations provide a CPT Code-based search engine for backend bundling by an aggregate billing source to transact and pay debt owed for healthcare services on behalf of consumers of varied healthcare services from diverse providers and facilities. Various implementations provide a predetermined bundled set of healthcare services defined by CPT and related codes producing search results in an easy-to-understand consumer-friendly format. Also presented is an apparatus and associated methods for bundling the debt of a plurality of healthcare services downstream from a healthcare service provider based on collecting a single payment from a consumer that has already received the healthcare services and distributing payment to a plurality of providers and facilities for at least one of the healthcare services. Some backend bundled services and debt may be converted to tradeable health assets.

“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 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 the instructions cause the processor to perform operations comprising: in response to receiving a selection of a plurality of healthcare services separately associated with respective providers, wherein the selection comprises an indication to bundle debt of the selected plurality of healthcare services: associating the selected plurality of healthcare services with at least one predetermined bundled set of healthcare services; and determining a bundle price for the bundled set of healthcare services, wherein the bundle price is determined based on a location associated with providing at least one healthcare service of the bundled set of healthcare services.

“2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise receiving a single payment for the bundled set of healthcare services.

“3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise disbursing a plurality of payments allocated from the received payment, wherein the plurality of disbursed payments is disbursed to a respective plurality of providers of the bundled set of healthcare services.

“4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein associating the selected plurality of healthcare services with at least one predetermined bundled set of healthcare services further comprises mapping one or more service code related to the plurality of healthcare services to at least one predetermined bundled set of healthcare services.

“5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise comparing the one or more service code to one or more predetermined bundled set that comprises at least one service associated with the one or more service code.

“6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise in response to determining one or more service code of the plurality of healthcare services does map to at least one predetermined bundled set of healthcare services, adding the at least one predetermined bundled set of healthcare services to a group of predetermined bundled sets that cover the one or more service code.

“7. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise in response to determining one or more service code of the plurality of healthcare services does not map to at least one predetermined bundled set of healthcare services, adding the one or more service code to a group of service codes not covered by a predetermined bundled set.

“8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise creating a new bundled set comprising the one or more service code not covered by a predetermined bundled set.

“9. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise extracting the one or more service code from data received by a web service or a user interface operably coupled with the processor.

“10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise determining and indicating a minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services that cover care of the received selection of the plurality of healthcare services.

“11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise indicating the minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services via a web service.

“12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise indicating the minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services via a user interface operably coupled with the processor.

“13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein determining the minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services further comprises removing duplicate services from the received selection of the plurality of healthcare services.

“14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein determining the minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services further comprises removing a bundled set that is a subset of another bundled set from a group of bundled sets that covers care of the received selection of the plurality of healthcare services.

“15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein determining the minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services further comprises removing services common to a plurality of predetermined bundled sets.

“16. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise determining the bundle price as a function of the minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services that cover care of the received selection of the plurality of healthcare services.

“17. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise receiving a single payment in an amount of the bundle price for the minimal group of bundled sets and discrete services.

“18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the bundled set of healthcare services were already provided separately by respective providers before receiving payment.

“19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the bundled set of healthcare services were offered to be provided separately by respective providers after receiving payment.

“20. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the received payment further comprises real currency.

“21. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the received payment further comprises virtual funds.

“22. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the received payment further comprises authorization to finance the bundled debt of a plurality of healthcare services.

“23. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise determining a user’s propensity to pay the bundle price.

“24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise automatically adjusting the plurality of services comprising a bundled set based on the user’s propensity to pay.

“25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein automatically adjusting the plurality of services further comprises adding, removing, or substituting at least one service of the bundled set.

“26. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise aggregating the debt for the bundled set of healthcare services and sending the aggregated debt to a billing provider.

“27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise receiving a single payment for the bundled set of healthcare services from the billing provider.

“28. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise receiving a single payment for the bundled set of healthcare services from a user that selected the plurality of healthcare services.

“29. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprise: generating in the memory a digital health asset token encoding a purchase data record identified by a unique confirmation number selectively redeemable by a user to receive each healthcare service of the bundled set of healthcare services individually; and sending the digital health asset token to an asset exchange trading platform.

“30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the bundle price is adjusted based on trading the digital health asset on the exchange trading platform.”

For more information, see this patent application: Ketchel, Paul J. Cpt Code Search Engine For Backend Bundling Of Healthcare Services And A Virtual Payment System. Filed September 15, 2021 and posted January 6, 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=%2220220005098%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20220005098&RS=DN/20220005098

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