Imagine expanding your corporate card program to include Cash Pay Healthcare financing through a dedicated virtual Cash Pay Healthcare card.
A virtual Cash Pay Healthcare card program instantly generates unique multiple-digit card numbers and expiration dates for a single health care transaction, so a specific medical provider can only access the approved amount of funds.
Here’s how it works
Joe Sixpack gets a referral from his direct primary care physician for upstream care. It could be for a MRI, or for lab tests, or a specialty care visit. The referral process is coordinated through a Care Navigator who identifies a cash friendly provider, verifies the cash price to be paid, and sets the appointment.
A virtual Cash Pay Card is instantly issued to Joe for the exact amount of the agreed cash price and is valid specific to Joe’s provider.
Joe presents his Cash Pay Healthcare Card as he checks in. The provider can only access the approved amount of funds and is paid instantly, in full, with no balance due. Joe gets the services he needs and leaves happy. He stops by Starbucks for Happy Hour on the way back to work to celebrate his good fortune.
The one-time-use functionality of virtual Cash Pay Healthcare cards allows for tight controls and greater visibility over plan spending. With the unique number, providers can only access the approved amount of funds. Beats a poke-in-the-eye.
A Plan Sponsor can assume the role of Care Navigator or outsource that function. It’s not rocket science. For example, a quick search ChatGPT [OpenAI] for “Cash Price For MRI In Corpus Christi” instantly, (before you can finish saying “What’s Taking So Long!“), identifies several locations with prices ranging from $327 to $533. A quick call to confirm the price includes setting the appointment for the member. One phone call, ten minutes…………Done.
Plan sponsored cash-pay-healthcare is nothing new. Plan Sponsors have been doing this for years with good success. The savings over “insurance company prices” with their “steep discounts” is well documented. Plans often get hospital cash pricing at rates less than Medicare. Industry wide cash pricing averages 115% – 130% of Medicare.
Meanwhile back at the ranch your PPO plan, with one of four recognized logos adorning your I.D. Card, continues to spend your money to pay claims at much higher rates. In the case of the Corpus Christi MRI cash price of $327 your price after applying a steep PPO hospital discount is Victor Lustig’s dream come true.
That makes zero sense.
