Visa going direct into health payments market

A-Claim offers insurers an interface that checks eligibility and automatically calculates payments based on the patient's plan.

This does not mean patients must settle bills with Visa cards, but it could put the Visa logo onto insurance cards and run payments through Visa's processing system.

The deal is big for both sides. It puts Visa directly into health care payments. It gives PHT a big partner it can use to secure deals with insurers and hospital networks.

Visa emphasized that the system allows hospitals to guarantee payment at the point of care, noting that as many as 50% of all bills go unpaid.

Hopefully this can also eliminate the common hassle of patients getting tiny bills from hospitals for treatments received weeks or months before, after they have been run through the insurance system. The A-Claim solution promises to run those payments through Visa automatically.