Method and apparatus for managing physician profile and healthcare appointment services
First Claim
1. A method of managing a physician profile data aggregator server comprising:
- maintaining a central managed database of profile information for physicians having affiliations with multiple hospitals and insurance providers, wherein the multiple hospitals and insurance providers have multiple respective online directories of profile information and have different sets of credentialing rules, each set of credentialing rules for a given hospital or insurance provider specifying a subset of the profile information that is compliant for inclusion in the respective online directories of physicians affiliated with the given hospital or insurance provider;
the aggregator'"'"'s server providing a web page to a client computer, the web page serving as a template for entry of physician profile data and having a plurality of data fields for entering items of profile information according to a data entry mask, said data fields being standardized so that data can be used across multiple hospitals/insurance providers;
receiving input adding an affiliation of the physician with an additional hospital and/or insurance provider;
searching for an additional set of credentialing rules required for the additional hospital and/or insurance provider and adding dynamically updating the data fields of the data entry mask to generate an updated data entry mask for the additional hospital and/or insurance provider comprising an intersection of the set of the plurality of data fields and the subset of profile information determined by the additional set of credentialing rules to be compliant for inclusion in a respective online directory of the additional hospital/insurance provider;
receiving physician profile data at the web page and storing a record of physician profile information in the central database;
providing the physician profile information from the central database for inclusion in various online physician profile directories of the hospitals/insurance providers with which the physician is affiliated; and
applying the set of credentialing rules specific to the hospital or insurance provider in order to determine compliance with the rules of some or all of the profile information, wherein said rules comprise criteria for determining whether individual ones of said data fields are automatically excluded from an online directory of the respective hospital or insurance provider, automatically included in the online directory, and require approval prior to being included in the online directory;
including the profile information for which compliance is found in the online directory of the respective hospital or insurance provider; and
mapping physician availability between an availability aggregator system and a practice management system to provide a view of physician availability, where mapping comprises installing a program on the practice management system that captures a screenshot showing at least one of physician availability and unavailability times and transmits the screenshot to the availability aggregator system that determines at least one of physician availability and unavailability times by evaluating color and position of one or more pixels in the screenshot.
15 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Method and apparatus for the collection and management of healthcare practitioner profile information prior to inclusion in a hospital directory of affiliated practitioners or insurance provider directory of participating practitioners. Healthcare practitioners (e.g., physicians) enter and communicate changes to their profile data to a central database to increase their compliance and decrease the frequency of providing updated or incomplete information in a hospital or insurance provider directory. The profile data can be credentialed according to rules specific to each hospital or insurance provider, prior to inclusion in the directory. The directory may further provide online booking of available appointment times for affiliated physicians from multiple practice groups. The online booking process can simultaneously be available on multiple websites of a hospital, insurance provider, physician practice group and/or centralized provider (aggregator).
32 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A method of managing a physician profile data aggregator server comprising:
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maintaining a central managed database of profile information for physicians having affiliations with multiple hospitals and insurance providers, wherein the multiple hospitals and insurance providers have multiple respective online directories of profile information and have different sets of credentialing rules, each set of credentialing rules for a given hospital or insurance provider specifying a subset of the profile information that is compliant for inclusion in the respective online directories of physicians affiliated with the given hospital or insurance provider; the aggregator'"'"'s server providing a web page to a client computer, the web page serving as a template for entry of physician profile data and having a plurality of data fields for entering items of profile information according to a data entry mask, said data fields being standardized so that data can be used across multiple hospitals/insurance providers; receiving input adding an affiliation of the physician with an additional hospital and/or insurance provider; searching for an additional set of credentialing rules required for the additional hospital and/or insurance provider and adding dynamically updating the data fields of the data entry mask to generate an updated data entry mask for the additional hospital and/or insurance provider comprising an intersection of the set of the plurality of data fields and the subset of profile information determined by the additional set of credentialing rules to be compliant for inclusion in a respective online directory of the additional hospital/insurance provider; receiving physician profile data at the web page and storing a record of physician profile information in the central database; providing the physician profile information from the central database for inclusion in various online physician profile directories of the hospitals/insurance providers with which the physician is affiliated; and applying the set of credentialing rules specific to the hospital or insurance provider in order to determine compliance with the rules of some or all of the profile information, wherein said rules comprise criteria for determining whether individual ones of said data fields are automatically excluded from an online directory of the respective hospital or insurance provider, automatically included in the online directory, and require approval prior to being included in the online directory; including the profile information for which compliance is found in the online directory of the respective hospital or insurance provider; and mapping physician availability between an availability aggregator system and a practice management system to provide a view of physician availability, where mapping comprises installing a program on the practice management system that captures a screenshot showing at least one of physician availability and unavailability times and transmits the screenshot to the availability aggregator system that determines at least one of physician availability and unavailability times by evaluating color and position of one or more pixels in the screenshot. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A physician profile management apparatus comprising:
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a computer apparatus including a processor and memory storing one or more programs for execution by the processor; a storage module for storing in an aggregator'"'"'s central managed database physician profiles for physicians having affiliations with multiple hospitals and/or insurance providers, wherein the multiple hospitals and insurance providers have multiple respective online directories of profile information and have different sets of credentialing rules, each set of credentialing rules for a given hospital or insurance provider specifying a subset of the profile information that is compliant for inclusion in the respective online directories of physicians affiliated with the given hospital or insurance provider; a template module executed by the processor for delivering a web page to a client computer over a public network, the web page serving as a template for physicians to submit the profile information to the database; and a selection filter executed by the processor for retrieving from the database different select categories of the profile information for a specified physician, based on the affiliated hospital/insurance providers for each physician, whereby the web page has a plurality of data fields according to a data entry mask, said data fields being standardized so that data can be used across multiple hospitals/insurance providers; the apparatus configured so that when input is received from a physician adding an affiliation with an additional hospital and/or insurance provider, an additional set of credentialing rules for the additional hospital and/or insurance provider is retrieved and the data fields of the data entry mask are dynamically updated to generate an updated data entry mask for the additional hospital and/or insurance provider, the updated data entry mask comprising an intersection of the set of the plurality of data fields and the subset of profile information determined by the additional set of credentialing rules as compliant for inclusion in a respective online directory of the additional hospital/insurance provider, the apparatus being configured to receive physician profile data at the web page, store a record of physician profile information in the aggregator'"'"'s database and provide the physician profile information from the central database for inclusion in various online physician profile directories of the hospitals/insurance providers with which the physician is affiliated, and a credentialing module executed by the processor for applying credentialing rules specific to a hospital or insurance provider for application to the profile information prior to inclusion of the profile information in an on-line physician profile directory of the respective hospital or insurance provider, wherein said rules comprise criteria for determining whether individual ones of said data fields are automatically excluded from an online directory of the respective hospital or insurance provider, automatically included in the online directory, and require approval prior to being included in the online directory; and a physician availability mapping module for mapping between an availability aggregator system and a practice management system to provide a view of physician availability, where the mapping module comprises a program module installed on the practice management system that captures a screenshot showing at least one of physician availability and unavailability times and transmits the screenshot to the availability aggregator system that determines at least one of physician availability and unavailability times by evaluating color and position of one or more pixels in the screenshot. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification