US healthcare to save $4.6bn through e-payments

Medical Daily reports.

The rules adopt standards for how a health plan sends information to its bank when it wants to pay a claim to a provider electronically.

The new rules are expected to lower costs for doctors and hospitals, private health plans, states, and other government health plans, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The rules stem from a provision of the Affordable Care Act, and require electronic payments and notices of the payment, called remittance advice, sent by the health plan to doctors, to carry tracking numbers so doctors can more easily match up the payments with the bills they correspond to, DOTmed states.

The current regulation went into effect at the start of the year, and health plans must comply within the next two years.

NPR says while the administration estimates it could cost insurance companies as much as $28 million to implement the system, those costs will be more than made up by savings estimated at as much as $40 million over 10 years.

According to the US Department of Health, doctors and hospitals stand to reap between $3 billion and $4.5 billion in lower administrative costs once the new rules are fully in effect, starting 1 January 2014.