Patent Issued for Medical reimbursement system based upon appointment validation and related methods (USPTO 11966918): Inmar Rx Solutions Inc.

2024 MAY 10 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Inmar Rx Solutions Inc. (Ft. Worth, Texas, United States) has been issued patent number 11966918, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Arledge, Ryan (Kalamazoo, MI, US).

This patent was filed on November 19, 2021 and was published online on April 23, 2024.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “One type of reimbursable expense is a vehicle mileage or vehicle distance traveled reimbursement. For example, a user may be reimbursed for mileage traveled for business. The mileage reimbursement is typically provided to offset costs associated with driving for the business, such as, for example, fuel, tolls, and usage of the user’s personal vehicle.

“Mileage may also be reimbursable when the purpose of the travel or driving is medically related. For example, under certain government programs, such as Medicaid, a user may obtain a mileage reimbursement for providing transportation, for example, to a person that cannot drive or reasonably be capable of transporting themselves to the medical appointment. With respect to Medicaid, for example, the user may obtain the reimbursement only after obtaining a proper authorization from a plan administrator. To obtain the proper authorization, the user typically contacts the plan administrator for a trip identifier, and then manually, for example, via a handwritten form, logs the travel distance to the medical appointment. The form is signed or validated by a healthcare provider and sent back to the plan administrator for validation and processing of the reimbursement payment. Similar mileage reimbursement programs may also be provided by other medical insurance plans, whether government sponsored plans or private plans.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “A medical reimbursement system may include a user device configured to obtain an actual medical appointment location and an actual medical appointment time for a user medical appointment. The medical reimbursement system may also include a medical reimbursement processing server configured to obtain a scheduled medical appointment location and a scheduled medical appointment time for the user medical appointment, and obtain the actual medical appointment location and the actual medical appointment time from the user device. The medical reimbursement processing server may also be configured to validate whether the actual medical appointment location matches the scheduled medical appointment location and whether the actual medical appointment time matches the scheduled medical appointment time.

“The medical reimbursement processing server may also be configured to, when the actual medical appointment location matches the scheduled medical appointment location and when the actual medical appointment time matches the scheduled medical appointment time, determine a distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment, calculate a travel distance reimbursement for the user based upon the distance traveled, and process travel payment to the user based upon the travel distance reimbursement.

“The medical reimbursement processing server is configured to obtain the actual medical appointment location based upon image data from the user device. The image data may be based upon a quick response (QR) code, for example.

“The medical reimbursement processing server may be configured to obtain the actual medical appointment location as data via the user device and from a wireless device at the actual medical appointment location. The medical reimbursement processing server may be configured to obtain an address of the user to calculate the distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment, for example.

“The medical reimbursement processing server may be configured to obtain geographic position data from the user device to calculate the distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment, for example. The medical reimbursement processing server may be configured to obtain a medical insurance claim for the medical appointment including the scheduled medical appointment location and the scheduled medical appointment time.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A medical reimbursement system comprising: a user device associated with a user having a user identifier associated therewith, the user device configured to obtain an actual medical appointment location based upon user device global positioning system (GPS) coordinates associated with the actual medical appointment location and based upon image data associated with the actual medical appointment location, and obtain an actual medical appointment time for a user medical appointment; a medical reimbursement processing server configured to communicate with a remote server to obtain a scheduled medical appointment location having scheduled appointment GPS coordinates and a unique location identifier associated therewith and a scheduled medical appointment time for the user medical appointment based upon the user identifier, obtain the actual medical appointment time from the user device, communicate with the user device to obtain the user device GPS coordinates associated with the actual medical appointment location, communicate with the user device to obtain the image data associated with the actual medical appointment location from the user device, validate whether the actual medical appointment location matches the scheduled medical appointment location and whether the actual medical appointment time matches the scheduled medical appointment time by at least matching the user device and scheduled appointment GPS coordinates, determining that the image data is associated with the unique location identifier, and determining the actual appointment time to be within a threshold time of the scheduled appointment time, and when so, determine a distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment, calculate a travel distance reimbursement for the user based upon the distance traveled, and process travel payment to the user based upon the travel distance reimbursement.

“2. The medical reimbursement system of claim 1 wherein the image data is based upon a quick response (QR) code.

“3. The medical reimbursement system of claim 1 wherein the medical reimbursement processing server is configured to obtain the actual medical appointment location as data via the user device and from a wireless device at the actual medical appointment location.

“4. The medical reimbursement system of claim 1 wherein the medical reimbursement processing server is configured to obtain an address of the user to calculate the distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment.

“5. The medical reimbursement system of claim 1 wherein the medical reimbursement processing server is configured to calculate the distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment based upon the user device GPS coordinates.

“6. The medical reimbursement system of claim 1 wherein the medical reimbursement processing server is configured to obtain a medical insurance claim for the medical appointment including the scheduled medical appointment location and the scheduled medical appointment time.

“7. The medical reimbursement system of claim 1 wherein the medical reimbursement processing server is configured to process travel payment by cooperating with a payment processing server.

“8. The medical reimbursement system of claim 1 wherein the user device comprises a mobile wireless device comprising a housing, a wireless transceiver carried by the housing, a camera carried by the housing, a display carried by the housing, and a controller carried by the housing and coupled to the wireless transceiver, camera and display.

“9. A medical reimbursement processing server comprising: a processor and an associated memory configured to communicate with a remote server to obtain a scheduled medical appointment location having scheduled appointment global positioning system (GPS) coordinates and a unique location identifier associated therewith and a scheduled medical appointment time for a user medical appointment based upon a user identifier associated with a user, obtain an actual medical appointment time from a user device associated with the user, communicate with the user device to obtain user device GPS coordinates associated with the actual medical appointment location, communicate with the user device to obtain image data associated with the actual medical appointment location from the user device, validate whether the actual medical appointment location matches the scheduled medical appointment location and whether the actual medical appointment time matches the scheduled medical appointment time by at least matching the user device and scheduled appointment GPS coordinates, determining that the image data is associated with the unique location identifier, and determining the actual appointment time to be within a threshold time of the scheduled appointment time, and when so, determine a distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment, calculate a travel distance reimbursement for the user based upon the distance traveled, and process travel payment to the user based upon the travel distance reimbursement.

“10. The medical reimbursement server of claim 9 wherein the image data is based upon a quick response (QR) code.

“11. The medical reimbursement server of claim 9 wherein the processor is configured to obtain the actual medical appointment location as data via the user device and from a wireless device at the actual medical appointment location.

“12. The medical reimbursement server of claim 9 wherein the processor is configured to obtain an address of the user to calculate the distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment.

“13. The medical reimbursement server of claim 9 wherein the processor is configured to calculate the distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment based upon the user device GPS coordinates.

“14. A method of processing a medical reimbursement comprising: using a medical reimbursement processing server to communicate with a remote server to obtain a scheduled medical appointment location having scheduled appointment global positioning system (GPS) coordinates and a unique location identifier associated therewith and a scheduled medical appointment time for a user medical appointment based upon a user identifier associated with a user, obtain an actual medical appointment time from a user device associated with the user, communicate with the user device to obtain user device GPS coordinates associated with the actual medical appointment location, communicate with the user device to obtain image data associated with the actual medical appointment location from the user device, validate whether the actual medical appointment location matches the scheduled medical appointment location and whether the actual medical appointment time matches the scheduled medical appointment time by at least matching the user device and scheduled appointment GPS coordinates, determining that the image data is associated with the unique location identifier, and determining the actual appointment time to be within a threshold time of the scheduled appointment time, and upon validation, determine a distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment, calculate a travel distance reimbursement for the user based upon the distance traveled, and process travel payment to the user based upon the travel distance reimbursement.

“15. The method of claim 14 wherein using the medical reimbursement processing server comprises using the medical reimbursement processing server to obtain the actual medical appointment location as data via the user device and from a wireless device at the actual medical appointment location.

“16. The method of claim 14 wherein using the medical reimbursement processing server comprises using the medical reimbursement processing server to calculate the distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment based upon the user device GPS coordinates.

“17. A non-transitory computer readable medium for processing a medical reimbursement, the non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising: communicating with a remote server to obtain a scheduled medical appointment location having scheduled appointment global positioning system (GPS) coordinates and a unique location identifier associated therewith and a scheduled medical appointment time for a user medical appointment based upon a user identifier associated with a user; obtaining an actual medical appointment time from a user device associated with the user; communicating with the user device to obtain user device GPS coordinates associated with the actual medical appointment location; communicating with the user device to obtain image data associated with the actual medical appointment location from the user device; validating whether the actual medical appointment location matches the scheduled medical appointment location and whether the actual medical appointment time matches the scheduled medical appointment time by at least matching the user device and scheduled appointment GPS coordinates, determining that the image data is associated with the unique location identifier, and determining the actual appointment time to be within a threshold time of the scheduled appointment time, and when so, determining a distance traveled by the user related to the user medical appointment, calculating a travel distance reimbursement for the user based upon the distance traveled, and processing travel payment to the user based upon the travel distance reimbursement.

“18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17 wherein the operations comprise obtaining the actual medical appointment location as data via the user device and from a wireless device at the actual medical appointment location.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Arledge, Ryan. Medical reimbursement system based upon appointment validation and related methods. U.S. Patent Number 11966918, filed November 19, 2021, and published online on April 23, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11966918)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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