System for communication of health care data

• US 8,392,223 B2
• Filed: 02/21/2012
• Issued: 03/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/11/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Healthtrio LLC (Spok Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Healthtrio LLC (Spok Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hasan, Malik M., Wallen, J. Dominic, Peterson, John C., Post, Cindy A., Korpman, Ralph A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lubin, Valerie
• Application Number:
  US13/400,909
• Publication Number:
  US 20120150557A1
• Time in Patent Office: 378 Days
• Field of Search: 705 2- 4, 434/236
• US Class Current: 705/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 80/00 ICT specially adapted for facilitating communication between medical practitioners or patients, e.g. for collaborative diagnosis, therapy or health monitoring

Abstract

An apparatus for communicating health care data from a sender to a receiver is provided. The apparatus has a first computer system, a second computer system, and a rules engine. The first computer system has health care data stored therein. The second computer system is in operable communication with, and is configured to extract the health care data from, the first computer system. The rules engine normalizes the extracted health care data to a predefined format.

Claims

1. A computer system for transmitting healthcare data from a provider, the computer system comprising:

an intermediary computer system that includes a staging database in communication with a healthcare provider computer system and one or more healthcare payor computer systems;

wherein the staging database is configured to receive uploaded healthcare claims data of a first patient from the healthcare provider computer system;

wherein communication between the intermediary computer system and the healthcare provider computer system is over the Internet;

wherein the intermediary computer system is configured to include a rules-based system to evaluate the healthcare claims data received from the provider;

wherein the one or more payor computer systems are configured to receive healthcare claims data from a plurality of patients through the intermediary computer system; and

wherein the staging database is configured to transfer the healthcare claims data of the first patient to one of the one or more healthcare payor computers.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the one of the one or more healthcare payor computer systems is configured to send data related to the healthcare claims data of the first patient through the server and to the provider computer system.

3. The computer system of claim 2, wherein the provider computer system is configured to transfer healthcare claims data of a second patient through the server and to a second of the one or more healthcare payer systems.

4. The computer system of claim 2, wherein the server is configured to transfer normalized data between the provider computer system and the one of the payor computer systems;

wherein the normalized data is of a type that is selected from a group consisting of eligibility, benefits, and referral; and

wherein the normalized data is in a normalized format of a type that displays healthcare data from one or more sources such that any healthcare data associated with a patient which has the same meaning will be expressed in the same format despite any prior formatting.