Merchant360, Health Portal Solutions, and CliniCard Form Alliance to Improve Patient Identification and Payments with Near Field Communications

MEDFORD, Ore., Oct. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Merchant360, Inc., the leader in Near Field Communication Integration at the Point of Sale, Health Portal Solutions, Inc., the Pioneer of Health Data Management for Self-Insureds, and CliniCard, Inc., the Innovator of Health Card Solutions, have announced an alliance today to improve Patient Identification and Payments using Near Field Communications Technology.

The solution is called PatientID+ and will be demonstrated at the 31st Annual Self-Insurance Institute of America Conference and Expo being held in Phoenix, AZ October 9th and 10th.

PatientID+ uses NFC technology to allow healthcare providers to perform identity verification, eligibility screening, and payment at intake. Identity, benefit, and payment Information is securely stored on the PatientID+ mobile contactless tag or in the patient's mobile phone equipped with NFC. The patient enters a PIN to access and transmit the information to the provider, who then authenticates to access the information.

"The goal is to get rid of those forms we all dislike to fill out when we get to the doctor's office, thereby speeding up the process, making it more convenient for the patient and increasing data accuracy. Having one solution that can act as my insurance card, my identity across multiple systems, and payment card is bound to cut costs and improve service," says Steve McRae, CEO of Merchant360, Inc.

"We are excited about the expanded capabilities the PatientID+ card brings to our health portal. Streamlining health data from many sources and delivering it to multi-users in a secure environment is our specialty. The card will enhance our user interface, giving members, providers, and payers a solution for further streamlining the process of sharing and managing health data and payment information. Our clients are always looking for ways to improve patient care as well as ways to improve business processes. Additionally, today's healthcare regulatory demands are pushing for everyone to electronically store and exchange healthcare data. The PatientID+ card will support our efforts in satisfying these demands, and provide a complementary solution to our portal technology for reducing time spent on administrative tasks, cut customer service call volume, and tighten efficiencies overall," said James (Jamey) Burkholder, CEO of Health Portal Solutions, Inc.

Doug Broeska, president of The CliniCard Inc., said in a statement that "Mobile commerce through NFC is already here through the growing availability of NFC-ready personal handsets looking for plug-in uses. Extended to medical payments, there is deeply entrenched but seriously flawed and inefficient payment industry standing in the way of a single integrated authentication/adjudication/payment solution for healthcare claims. Steve Jobs is the guy who said, 'The quality of ideas push the human race forward.' Well, this is a good one that is a game-changer for the healthcare industry. We'll start off with a card, but we are really impartial as to how the system is accessed and the payment is made. The entry interface could be a card, a contactless tag or an application on an NFC cell phone device. The CliniCard's backend intelligence is really what does it all in the cloud."

The PatientID+ solution optionally uses magnetic swipe technology to read the identification number from the card, like an everyday bank card, and then securely pulls the information from the cloud.

About Merchant360, Inc.

Merchant360, Inc. is the leader in Point of Sale development and integration with specialty in mobile contactless and Near Field Communication Solutions. Merchant360 owns several other NFC focused brands such as Mobifyer, MobiTap.me, and TapInto.me. For more information, visit http://Merchant360.net and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mobifyer.

About Health Portal Solutions

Health Portal Solutions is a software company with over 10 years of experience developing and supporting healthcare web portals for hospital systems, corporations, and TPAs across the globe. These web portals let users access important medical data, claims information, and wellness tools while giving you resources to effectively manage your business.

Contact Information:

Merchant360, Inc.
Jennifer Hoppe
[email protected]
1(877)998-5252
http://www.Merchant360.net and http://www.PatientIdPlus.com

Health Portal Solutions, Inc.
Angela Jones
[email protected]
1(855)414-1014
http://www.HPSGlobal.net

The CliniCard
Doug Broeska
[email protected]
http://www.theclinicard.com/

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SOURCE Merchant360, Inc.