Medical payment system

Abstract

A plurality of remote terminals (A) are each disposed in a physician's office and are connected by telephone lines or other electronic data communication with a central processing system (B). Each terminal includes a data entry key board (10) and a magnetic tape reader (12) for entering physician, patient, medical service, insurance, and other medically related data. The entered data is processed by a terminal processor (20) to incorporate previously stored data from an electronic data memory and to transfer and store entered medical transaction data to memory. The central processing system includes a physician file for storing participating physician identifications for verifying received physician information data, a patient memory for storing participating patient data for verifying received patient identification data, an insurance company file for storing appropriate format for medical claims for each of a plurality of participating insurance companies, and a claims file for storing a record of medical insurance claims processed. A central processing computer processes the received data and formats it into the approriate format for a medical claim to the identified insurance company. A printer (D) or an electronic data transfer (C) transfers the medical claims from the central processing system directly to the insurance companies. Electronic funds transfer facilities at the central processing station and at one or more banks or financial institutions are called upon to transfer funds directly to a physician's account and to acknowledge receipt of funds from insurance company accounts.