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Health Share Card

HEALTH SHARE CARD

The Access Project (TAP) has launched a new Health Share Card Initiative that uses a debit card to help improve access to care and improve disease management for uninsured and underinsured chronically ill patients. The card offers a number of innovative features that can be used by participants to offset the cost of co-payments, medications, visits to specialists, and non-clinical services, such as nutrition and exercise. It is unique from other prepaid health cards since it validates membership, verifies eligibility at the point of care and incorporates rules-based technology for all payments. Additionally, the technology provides care manager teams with information support for both medical and non-medical care for patients with chronic health conditions. Additional details are available at www.wiredbenefits.com/.

"Financial barriers can severely limit access to primary and preventive care," said Mark Rukavina, Director of The Access Project. "Our card provides a simple mechanism that allows patients to access necessary care and pay for this care at the time of service through swipe-of-a-card technology. The innovation of our prepaid card is that it allows us to load targeted resources. For example, the card can help eliminate financial barriers to specific medical care, proper nutrition and exercise; all necessary to the effective maintenance of health for diabetic patients."

"The Health Share Card will help to reduce or even eliminate the financial barriers patients face," said Charles Marshall, CEO of WiredBenefits. "We want to help patients manage their health on their own and believe our solution brings them one step closer."

Although The Access Project currently focuses on diabetic patients in the Des Moines area, in the future the card platform and approach will expand to include other chronic illnesses and patient locations. The Health Share Card will also further its capabilities to include Short Message Services (SMS) messaging, automatic triggers based on patient behaviors and other features that improve communication, monitoring, and adherence to improve health management for patients.

About the card

The Health Share Card operates similar to a standard debit card, accepted at selected points of service through traditional point of sales devices. It coordinates patient's health funds from multiple sources, simplifying financial issues, removing barriers to adherence with prescribed regimens, and creating incentives for diet and exercise, reducing the likelihood of medical debt.

Other attributes of the Health Share Card:

Allows care managers to be more productive in communicating with and advising chronically ill patients by easily facilitating access to data on patient clinical interactions, exercise programs and proper nutritional services.

Enables care managers to tailor resources based on specific patient needs and load the necessary financial support onto the card for the patient to minimize care delays.

Provides crucial information to the care manager, enabling the manager to track services accessed by the patient.

Supports healthcare providers, public programs, charitable organizations, social service agencies, and drug manufacturers by lowering transaction costs and providing timely data to programs to be used to measure, manage and continually improve services.

Facilitates immediate payment to providers and motivates patients by reducing claims hassles or delays.

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Partners

A pilot project serving diabetic patients is currently being sponsored in Des Moines, IA. Our partners there are Primary Health Care, Inc. (PHC), a federally qualified health center in Des Moines, The Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED), Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Kaiser Permanente Program Offices Fund for Community Benefit, and the Mid-Iowa Health Foundation.

The increase in chronic disease, particularly weight-related conditions such as diabetes, has heightened the complexity and cost of primary medical care in Des Moines. The Access Project will pilot the Health Share Card in a project that intends to improve the health of diabetic patients currently receiving care through Primary Health Care, Inc. (PHC). Selected patients are given The Health Share Card, operated though WiredBenefits technology, which acts as an identification and payment debit card for medical services and other goods and services critical to proper diabetes care.

"For many uninsured or underinsured people, who don't even have money for gas, even small fees can be a barrier to accessing health care," said Bery Engebretsen, MD, Medical Director of Primary Health Care, Inc. "The Health Share Card will improve a patient's access to care by addressing cost barriers while allowing our care manager to track utilization of services. We will then examine whether our intervention leads to improved utilization and helps our patients better control their diabetes."

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For more information on the Health Share Card Initiative

Please contact Mark Rukavina at rukavina@accessproject.org or click here to order a brochure.

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