United Healthcare, one of the two largest health insurers in the U.S., set an important precedent when it recently announced its introduction of an online bill payment service that enables United members to pay their bills to healthcare providers by credit card or bank transfer. United, which has integrated the online bill-pay capability with its claims processing system, is the first payer to supply a service of this kind, said Victoria Bogatyrenko, VP of products innovation for United, in an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare. Although electronic claims submission, remittance advice and funds transfer have been widely adopted in the industry, the process of collecting the ever-increasing portion of payments that patients owe remains in the Middle Ages of technology.
