Market :: Financial Institutions
OpenPHI's services can be of service to banks and financial institutions. These are some specific examples.
Financial ecosystem for consumer-owned PHRs
Banks and financial institutions have the opportunity to offer consumers the ability to host their Personal Health Records ("PHRs") inside the banks' secure, trusted IT infrastructure. Think of PHRs as functionally equivalent to "virtual health safe deposit boxes." The diagram below shows the Use Case.
Click image to maximize it.
- Consumer opens a Personal Health Records account at a retail branch.
- Consumer works with bank's staffer to scan paper-based health records. (Alternatively, Consumer uses own scanner at home).
- Consumer defines access rights: who, what, when can view/post/edit her PHR. Leverage bank's security expertise.
- Providers are increasingly using industry standards (CCR, HL7) to exchange data amongst them.
- Upon Consumer's request, and approval, a Provider (physician, pharmacy, hospital, etc.) will upload data to, or query data from, the Consumer's PHR. Consumer is legally entitled to receiving a copy of data collected by Provider.
- Consumer maintains an pdated PHR subset in her mobile phone to show physician during visit, or emergency use.
- Wireless operators' Over The Air ("OTA") provisioning server will securely manage digital content in the mobile phone.
- Consumer will have complete control over her family's health information, wherever she is.
Please see the HealthAlbum section for more details.
These documents will provide you with:
Value Proposition for Financial Institution.
Customer loyalty: Financial institutions are constantly looking for new revenue streams; as well as for new and "sticky" applications that tie customers to their institution. PHR services will increase a Consumer's switching costs.
- Cross-sell: PHR account holders might buy additional bank's services; and the bank can offer PHR service to existing customers.
- Leverage existing IT, branch infrastructures: extract more revenue from existing real estate and IT investments.
- Market leadership: Be responsive to increasing consumer involvement in their family's health decisions.
- Revenue model: Set-up fee (US$100); and an annual fee (US$99) per family's PHR. This pricing model is similar to Consumer renting a safe deposit box. Additional fees for digitizing paper records (immunization records; x-rays).
Why?
Financial institutions are ideally positioned to lead the market for Personal Health Records ("PHRs") by providing a banking-grade secure storage for consumers' health data. Financial institutions bring:
- powerful consumer brand names
- trusted, solid, stands for safety
- highly secure IT infrastructure
- personal relationships via financial advisors
Value-added Services to HSAs
A Health Savings Account ("HSA") is defined as follows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_savings_account
“A health savings account (HSA), is a tax-advantaged medical savings account available to taxpayers in the United States who are enrolled in a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP). The funds contributed to the account are not subject to federal income tax at the time of deposit. Unlike a flexible spending account (FSA), funds roll over and accumulate year over year if not spent. HSAs are owned by the individual, which differentiates them from the company-owned Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) that is an alternate tax-deductible source of funds paired with HDHPs. Funds may be used to pay for qualified medical expenses at any time without federal tax liability. Withdrawals for non-medical expenses are treated very similarly to those in an IRA in that they may provide tax advantages if taken after retirement age, and they incur penalties if taken earlier. These accounts are a component of consumer driven health care.”
OpenPHI's services can add significant value to HSA providers as well as users. From our HealthAlbum Personal Health Record system to HealthLibrarian, our semantic search engine for health data. Contact us for a free demo of our systems.
