Patent Issued for Method and system for processing of electronic medical invoices (USPTO 11646114): SAP SE
2023 MAY 31 (NewsRx) -- By a
The patent’s inventors are Born, Torsten (Walldorf, DE), Gabriel, Jan (Walldorf, DE).
This patent was filed on
From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Effective processing of electronic documents is an everlasting problem of a health care sector. Health insurance providers (e.g. insurance companies) process millions invoices and other related documents sent by their clients. Invoices can have different formats. Some invoices can be in electronic form, comprising data text format. Other invoices can be images of invoices printed on paper. In addition different health care institutions can have different formants of invoices. Processing of invoices can be performed in conjunction with other data. For instance a client can get extra bonus when an overall sum of medical costs reimbursed by an insurance company in a particular interval of time (e.g. a year) is below a certain limit. In addition or as alternative a client can get extra bonus when he provides health care information to the insurance company. The health care information can be related to his compliance with the health care plan determined by an insurance company. The health care information can be related to visits of fitness facilities. As a result thereof of the electronic payment system has to process a lot of heterogeneous data received from different sources.”
Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The disclosure generally describes computer-implemented methods, computer-readable media, and electronic payment system for reimbursement of medical costs. The electronic medical invoices can be received in different formats. Some of invoices can be received in electronic text format; some other invoices can be received as images of medical invoices printed on a substrate (e.g. paper). The electronic medical invoices of a user can be processed in conjunction with other information provided by the user, e.g. information related to his compliance with the health care plan. Information related to reimbursement of medical costs of a user can be received by the electronic payment system without preprocessing or any preparation, e.g. the user can simply send a photo of the medical invoice via one communication channel to the electronic payment system. The heterogeneous information related to processing of a medical invoice can be received via different communication channels by the electronic payment system. This way of data processing can enable utilization of simple computer systems like mobile phones for providing information related to reimbursement of medical costs. Effective processing of heterogeneous information received via different communication channels is provided by configurable pipeline processing executed on the electronic payment system. The configurable pipeline processing is implemented by constructing different pipelines using a plurality of applications executed on the electronic payment system. Different pipelines for processing of data of specific types can be configured as a sequence of applications, wherein every next application in the sequence processes data received from an application being in the sequence immediately before the every next application the sequence. High degree of customization of the applications for execution of specific operations in conjunction with flexible construction of sequences enabling simultaneously using one application in different sequences can provide not only for effective processing of electronic medical invoices but for effective utilization of hardware resources of the electronic payment system.
“More than one application in the sequence can be configured to receive data. This feature can simplify processing of the heterogeneous information. For instance the first application in a sequence of applications can receive electronic medical invoices of a user. One of the next applications in this sequence can be configured to receive costs of the user extracted from the received medical invoices by an application being in the sequence before the one of the next applications the sequence. The one of the next applications can be further configured to calculate the amount to be reimbursed in conjunction with data related to compliance of the user with his healthcare plan. Adding info related to the compliance with the health care plan at this stage of processing can be very effective, because further configuring a portion of the sequence of applications which is configured to receive medical invoices of the user and to provide costs of the user extracted from the medical invoices, can be counterproductive because this will require customization of said portion of the sequence for additional workload like processing of info related to the compliance with the healthcare plan, i.e. customization for processing of heterogeneous data. The latter can be incompatible with paradigm of customization of an application for execution of a specific operation on data of a specific type.
“It is an objective of embodiments of the invention to provide for a system configured to provide effective processing of electronic medical invoices, a computer-implemented method for effective processing of electronic medical invoices, and a computer readable medium having stored thereon a computer executable program code for effective processing of electronic medical invoices. Advantageous embodiments are described in the dependent claims.
“According to one embodiment, the present invention relates to an electronic payment system for reimbursement of medical costs. The system comprises a server operable for execution of an application management component and a set of server applications comprising receiver applications and processing applications. The server comprises a processing unit and a memory storing computer executable code which when executed by the processing unit cases the server to execute the following: the server receiving via a digital cellular telecommunication network an electronic medical invoice from a sender application executed on an end terminal; the application management component assigning a sequence of the server applications of the set of server applications for processing of electronic medical invoices, wherein an application being the first in the sequence is a receiver application configured to receive and to process the electronic medical invoice, wherein each next following server application in the sequence is configured to process further the electronic medical invoice previously processed by the server application being in the sequence immediately before the each next following server application in the sequence, wherein the last server application in the sequence is configured to execute reimbursement of medical costs according to the electronic medical invoice processed by the server applications of the sequence of the applications; and the application management component causing the sequence of the server applications to process the electronic medical invoice.
“According to another embodiment, the present invention relates to a computer-implemented method for reimbursement of medical costs using an electronic payment system comprising a server operable for execution of an application management component and a set of server applications comprising receiver applications and processing applications. The computer-implemented method comprises the following: the server receiving via a digital cellular telecommunication network an electronic medical invoice from a sender application executed on an end terminal; the application management component assigning a sequence of server applications of the set of server applications for processing of electronic medical invoices, wherein an application being the first in the sequence is a receiver application configured to receive and to process the electronic medical invoice, wherein each next following server application in the sequence is configured to process further the electronic medical invoice previously processed by the server application being in the sequence immediately before the each next following server application in the sequence, wherein the last server application in the sequence is configured to execute reimbursement of medical costs according to the electronic medical invoice processed by the server applications of the sequence of the applications; and the application management component causing the sequence of the server applications to process the electronic medical invoice.”
The claims supplied by the inventors are:
“1. An electronic payment system for reimbursement of medical costs, the system comprising: a server including a set of server applications including receiver applications and processing applications; and logic circuitry that is configured to, receive via a digital cellular telecommunication network an electronic medical invoice assigned to a user from a sender application executed on an end terminal of the user, wherein the electronic medical invoice includes an image including mixed text and graphics, cause the end terminal of the user to collect user specific information from one or more health care devices that provide health care to the user and/or one or more health monitoring devices that monitor the user, based on a specification of the user specific information according to one or more user specific rules for processing the electronic medical invoice, assign a sequence of the server applications of the set of server applications for the processing of the electronic medical invoice, wherein an application being first in the sequence is a receiver application configured to receive and to process the electronic medical invoice, wherein each next server application in the sequence is configured to process further the electronic medical invoice previously processed by the server application being in the sequence immediately before the each next server application in the sequence, wherein the last server application in the sequence is configured to execute reimbursement of medical costs according to the electronic medical invoice processed by the server applications of the sequence of the applications, and process the electronic medical invoice by the sequence of the server applications based on the collected user specific information and the one or more user specific rules, wherein the processing further includes extracting text data from the image by, identifying an area of the image that includes one or more graphical objects using a first pattern recognition method, generating an auxiliary image by subtracting the area of the image that includes the one or more graphical objects, and identifying the text data in the auxiliary image using a second pattern recognition method, wherein the electronic medical invoice is an electronic file including an image of a medical invoice printed on a substrate, the image is a mixed text/graphic image, one of the server applications in the sequence of the server applications is configured to extract text data from an image, the server includes a database storing graphical objects each associated with a respective text fragment, the database stores a plurality of sets of wavelet functions, the logic circuitry is further configured to cause the sequence of the server applications to process the electronic medical invoice by extracting text data from the image included in the electronic medical invoice, at least one of the server application is configured to extract the text data from the image included in the electronic medical invoice by, a) identifying the one or more graphical objects in the image using the first pattern recognition method, wherein the first pattern recognition method includes a feature extraction method in which features of each of the one or more graphical objects are extracted from the image using one set of wavelet functions of the plurality of sets of wavelet functions, b) identifying a set of graphical objects, wherein each of the graphical objects of the set of graphical objects is stored in the database and is identified in the last execution of b), c) in case when the set of graphical objects identified in the last execution of b) is empty repeating a) and b) until the set of graphical objects identified in the last execution of b) is not empty or all sets of the plurality of wavelet functions stored in the database are used in a), wherein in every next repetition of a) another not yet used in a) set of wavelet functions stored in the database is used, and d) in case when the set of graphical objects identified in the last execution of b) is not empty performing the following: retrieving from the database a set of text fragments, wherein each of the text fragments of the set of text fragments is associated with the respective graphical object of the set of graphical objects identified in the last execution of b), generating an auxiliary image by subtracting from the image an image of the one or more graphical objects identified in the last execution of a), and identifying, using a second pattern recognition, text data in the generated auxiliary image, and e) in case when none of the text fragments of the set of text fragments retrieved from the database in the last execution of d) is included in the text data identified in the last execution of d), repeating a)-d) until one of the text fragments of the set of text fragments retrieved from the database in the last execution of d) is included in the text data identified in the last execution of d) or all sets of the plurality of wavelet functions stored in the database are used in a), wherein in every next repetition of a) another not yet used in a) set of wavelet functions stored in the database is used, wherein the text data extracted by the one of the server applications from the image included in the electronic medical invoice is the text data identified in d) when one of the text fragments of the set of text fragments is included in the text data identified in d).
“2. The electronic payment system of claim 1, wherein each electronic medical invoice has a respective type; the logic circuitry is configured to assign a respective customized sequence of the server applications of the set of the server applications for processing of each of the types; the sequence of the server applications is one of the customized sequences of the server applications; at least two of the customized sequences of the server applications have common fragments of the sequences of the server applications; each of the customized sequences of the server applications begins with the respective receiver application for receiving and processing of the electronic medical invoices of the type for which the each of the customized sequences of the server applications is customized; electronic medical invoices of one type have a text format; electronic medical invoices of another type include images of medical invoices printed on carriers, and the electronic medical invoices of each of the types are received via digital cellular telecommunication networks by the server from respective sender applications for sending the electronic medical invoices of the each of the types.
“3. The electronic payment system of claim 1, wherein each electronic medical invoice has a respective type; the logic circuitry is configured to monitor a number of electronic medical invoices to be processed by the server applications of the sequence of the server applications; one or more of the server applications of the sequence of the server applications are configured to process the electronic medical invoices in two modes, wherein in one mode of the two modes the electronic medical invoices are processed one by one and in another one of the two modes the electronic medical invoices of the same type are processed batch wise; and the logic circuitry is further configured to process electronic medical invoices in the another one of the two modes based on a number of electronic medical invoices of the same type to be processed by the server application being bigger than a predefined number otherwise the logic circuitry is configured to process the electronic medical invoices in the one of the two modes.
“4. The electronic payment system of claim 1, wherein the logic circuitry is configured to, monitor a workload of the server application of the sequence of the server applications; and allocate hardware resources of the server for execution of the server applications; and allocate respective hardware resources of the server for execution of each of the server applications of the sequence of the server applications in conjunction with the respective work load of the each of the server application of the sequence of the server applications such that time required for processing of electronic medical invoices by the sequence of the server applications is minimized.
“5. The electronic payment system of claim 1, wherein the server includes a database; a processing application of the sequence of the server applications is operable for monitoring and managing work load of the processing application; and the logic circuitry is further configured to, split, in two portions, a set of electronic medical invoices to be processed by the logic circuitry based on a number of the electronic medical invoices of the set exceeding a predefined number, store, in the database, one of the two portions, process another one of the two portions, retrieve from the database the one of the two portions, and process the one of the two portions retrieved from the database after the another one of the two portions is processed by the processing application.
“6. The electronic payment system of claim 1, wherein each electronic medical invoice is assigned to a respective user; the logic circuitry is configured to process electronic medical invoices according to user specific rules; and the logic circuitry is further configured to, receive from an application of a health insurance provider a user specific rule assigned to a user, and cause a processing application of the sequence of the server applications to process the electronic medical invoices assigned to the user according to the user specific rules.”
There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.
For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Born, Torsten. Method and system for processing of electronic medical invoices.
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