drchrono is a company with an intense focus on product usability. As the first company to offer a full-blown EHR on the iPad they’ve focused on building an elegant, easily navigated user interface and they continue to add valuable functionality to their platform.
Today drchrono is announcing the addition of real-time patient health insurance eligibility checking to its iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and EHR Platforms as well as the ability to process credit card payments on the iPhone. These new features will allow patients the ease of providing payments to doctors for their services and will enable both doctors and patients to check information regarding a patient’s insurance in real time.
If you’ve visited your physician recently you’ve probably experienced the process where you fill out forms, hand them your insurance card (which they photocopy) and then pay your insurance co-pay at the front desk after you’ve received care. Then a few weeks later you either receive a notification from your insurance company that the rest of the claim was paid, or that some of it was paid, or that it has been applied to your deductible. A few weeks after that you may receive a bill from your physician for the amount of the fee that wasn’t covered by your health insurance. There are obviously some inefficiencies in the system.
Daniel Kivatinos
I had the opportunity to speak with Daniel Kovatinos, co-founder and COO of drchrono about these inefficiencies and how drchrono is addressing them with their new features. He painted a very appealing verbal picture when he said, “Imagine going to your doctor’s office and knowing exactly what you’re covered for, right there and then.”
Medical offices using the drchrono EHR are able to provide this information, in real time using the patient insurance eligibility feature, which has also been added to their OnPatient app.
According to Daniel, “As soon as the insurance information is entered an eligibility check occurs. The medical staff, the doctor, and in the case of the OnPatient app even the patient get to see the information in real time.” Daniel continued by saying “It’s a way to make health insurance information more transparent for the doctor, for the patient and for the staff”.
The ability to take credit card payments via iPhone or iPod touch also addresses some of the inefficiencies in the process. As Daniel puts it “While you’re at the point of care you can be taken care of, and the doctor can be taken care of by being paid.”
Receiving payments from a credit card using drchrono doesn’t require that payments be made from a specific physical location. A physician or staff member can take a credit card anywhere and just swipe it using their iPhone or iPod touch. The payment processes are integrated with the patient record within the EHR so the payment is received and recorded with that single action.
iPhone patient payments and the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and web platform real-time patient insurance eligibility options are available now for medical practices. For more information on this ONC-ATCB certified EHR visit drchrono.com.
