Researchers Submit Patent Application, “One-Stop Shopping System and Method”, for Approval

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- From Washington, D.C., NewsRx journalists report that a patent application by the inventor HERZLINGER, Regina E. (Belmont, MA), filed on December 2, 2014, was made available online on June 11, 2015 (see also Patents).

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "Consumer Driven Health Care (CDHC) policies have been developed for employees of companies, individuals and groups (collectively 'Insureds') for obtaining health-care services in a manner that the underwriting insurers can be assured that these Insureds are obtaining economically reasonable health-care services and not needlessly overpaying for them. Typically, these policies contain a high-deductible. Thus, they require the Insureds to obtain quotes from more than one service provider to obtain the best value. However, many Insureds have found it very difficult to find the needed health-care information.

"To meet the needs of the growing number of Insureds that are covered by defined contribution approaches or CDHC policies, insurers have increased the amount of information that is available on web-based tools. These web-based tools provide the Insureds with quickly accessible information that they can use for obtaining and evaluating health insurance policies, health-care providers, and related health-care services. The information that these insurers provide may be slanted beneficially on behalf of the insurers because they can control the amount and content of the information that is posted on these web-based tools. Accordingly, the Insureds have no assurance that the information is objective and consider their interests.

"There are a number of reasons why the Insureds should not feel any comfort in the information that is provided by the insurers. One is that the insurers are unlikely to provide information that conflicts with their business interests, namely to maximize the return to their investors and minimize the amount paid out in claims. Therefore, information made available to the Insureds from insurer controlled web-based tools should not be felt to be particularly reliable from the Insureds' of view. As such, the Insureds must take actions to verify the information that is insurer provided. One such course of action when the information is mistrusted is to obtain a second opinion. Another action is to do extensive research when an enrollee feels that the insurer-provided information is simply not enough for the Insured to make a decision based on such information.

"Insureds would prefer to have needed information available from a number of independent sources so that they can make judicious comparisons of health insurance policies, health-care providers, and related health-care services, and the costs and/or prices associated with each of them. In the past, the sources of such information were not in any type of central depository where it could be readily obtained and compared. All that was available to the Insureds were pieces of information at disparate locations, which had to be somehow found and amassed to assist them to make health-care decisions. Therefore, unless the Insureds had a great deal of time and resources, integrated, relevant, and timely information was essentially unavailable to help them make health-care decisions. Noting this, it is highly desirable for there to be a single system that will make needed health-care information readily available from neutral third-party sources to assist the Insureds in making health-care decisions in an economically and judicious manner."

As a supplement to the background information on this patent application, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventor's summary information for this patent application: "The present invention is a system and method for providing one-stop shopping, among other things, for health-care services. It is understood that the preferred embodiment of the present invention is for providing one-stop shopping for health-care services but the present invention may be used for one-stop shopping of other services and still be within the scope of the present invention.

"With regard to the one-stop shopping system of the present invention, health-care information is provided from objective third-party sources so that system enrollees may be readily provided with the necessary information to make health-care decisions. This information may be for both the health-care and non-health-care needs of the system enrollee. For example, the non-health-care information may be directed to legal assistance information associated with the administration of health-care related matters.

"The system and method of the present invention may be embodied in a computer-based system through which an enrollee would be able to obtain objective information on a number of health-care and non-health-care matters. The computer-based system includes an Application Service Provider (ASP). This information may include, but not be limited to, the following topics: 1. Legal assistance 2. Tracking personal health-care 3. Choosing a health insurance policy 4. Managing a health savings account 5. Maximizing health 6. The siding and selecting medical treatments 7. Selecting doctors, hospitals, and other medical care providers 8. Second opinions 9. Rating medical care providers and insurers 10. Obtaining prices of medical care providers and pharmaceuticals 11. Interacting with insurers

"The preferred components of the system and method of the present invention include enrollee operated units, the ASP for controlling the flow of information for the one-stop shopping system, and remote information sources for providing objective third-party information to the system enrollees. The system and method of the present invention may be implemented using a wireless or wired communications network.

"The system enrollees, through the enrollee operated units, are able to access the ASP for inputting and receiving information. The ASP may include a control unit, a system unit that will be used by the system operator, and a number of system databases that are used for storing information that is input by the enrollee or retrieved based on enrollee requests.

"The ASP may be connected to streaming or other data feeds to provide current information in response to enrollee requests. The ASP may also be connected to an external database that contains the health-care records of the enrollee. Further, the ASP may be connected to an external database that includes economic data relating to an enrollee. Even further, the ASP may be connected to an external database that includes information related to an enrollee's health savings account.

"The system and method of the present invention, as just described, will enable the enrollee to readily obtain objective information in regard to health insurance policies, health-care providers, health-care services and health-care related information so that the system enrollee can make reasoned decisions about his/her health-care needs through one system.

"An object of the present invention is to provided system and method that will readily provide easily accessible information that a system enrollee can use for making economical and judicious health-care decisions.

"Another object of the present invention to provide a system and method that will allow system enrollees to have a single location through which they may timely obtain in depth information for use in making economical and judicious health-care decisions.

"These and other objects of the invention will be explained in greater detail in the remainder specification with references to the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

"FIG. 1 shows a schematic block drawing of the preferred embodiment system of the present invention.

"FIG. 2 shows a schematic block drawing of an embodiment of the information exchange with respect to the system and method of the present invention shown in FIG. 1 between the enrollee, third parties, service providers, insurers, and others."

For additional information on this patent application, see: HERZLINGER, Regina E. One-Stop Shopping System and Method. Filed December 2, 2014 and posted June 11, 2015. Patent URL: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=2263&p=46&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=20150604.PD.&OS=PD/20150604&RS=PD/20150604

Keywords for this news article include: Patents, Health Insurance.

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