Enterprise billing system for medical billing
First Claim
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1. A medical billing system for receiving charges from a plurality of charge sources and producing a consolidated statement for charges incurred for at least two billing programs, the medical billing system comprising:
- an enterprise registration system for associating charges with a known guarantor and forwarding the charge data and known guarantor to the billing programs;
a consolidated statement program for receiving charge data from each of the at least first and second billing programs and for producing a single billing statement for the known guarantor; and
a payment posting program receiving payment from the known guarantor and allocating the payment to each of the at least first and second billing systems based on rules stored in a rule engine.
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Abstract
An enterprise medical billing system receives patient identifying and charge information from a variety of sources, associates the charge data with a guarantor, provides a consolidated statement to the guarantor, and allocates portions of a received payment to the variety of sources based on a series of configurable payment rules.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A medical billing system for receiving charges from a plurality of charge sources and producing a consolidated statement for charges incurred for at least two billing programs, the medical billing system comprising:
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an enterprise registration system for associating charges with a known guarantor and forwarding the charge data and known guarantor to the billing programs;
a consolidated statement program for receiving charge data from each of the at least first and second billing programs and for producing a single billing statement for the known guarantor; and
a payment posting program receiving payment from the known guarantor and allocating the payment to each of the at least first and second billing systems based on rules stored in a rule engine. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A medical billing system for a medical enterprise comprising at least two medical practices having independent billing computer systems, the medical billing system comprising:
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at least one registration computer for registering patient visits and receiving charges for the medical practices;
an enterprise computer system storing guarantor data and coverage data for the medical practices; and
at least one common data link connecting the registration computer, the independent billing computer systems, and the enterprise computer system wherein the enterprise computer system communicates with each of the registration computer and independent billing computer systems and is programmed to;
(i) receive patient identifying data and charge data from the registration computer;
(ii) associate a guarantor with the patient identifying data and charge data for each patient visit, and route appropriate charges to each of the independent billing systems;
(iii) consolidate the charges from each of the independent billing systems into a single statement for each guarantor; and
(iv) allocate a payment received from the guarantor to each of the independent billing systems based on rules provided in a rule engine. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method for producing a single statement for medical expenses incurred from at least two medical practices having independent billing computer systems, the method comprising the following steps:
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identifying a guarantor for the medical charges as the charges are incurred;
associating the identified guarantor with the incurred charges and guarantor account data for each of the independent billing computer systems;
routing each charge incurred against the identified guarantor to one of the independent billing computer systems based on the type of charge;
periodically compiling a single statement for the guarantor; and
upon receipt of payment from the guarantor, allocating payment to each of the independent billing computer systems. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A method for producing a single statement for medical expenses incurred from at least two medical practices having independent billing computer systems, the method comprising the following steps:
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providing a database identifying a guarantor for a patient and account data for the guarantor for each of the independent billing computer systems;
associating the identified guarantor with the incurred charges and guarantor account data for each of the independent billing computer systems as charges are incurred;
periodically compiling a single statement for the guarantor based on charges incurred; and
upon receipt of payment from the guarantor, allocating payment to each of the independent billing computer systems based on the type of charges incurred. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26)
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Specification