Canopy Financial is making health savings accounts the new green.
The health care banking technology solutions provider based in San Francisco has created an offering designed to appeal to clients interested in providing more environmentally friendly, sustainable products and services.
The Green HSA offers consumers a 100% paperless account from enrollment to account management, with electronic statements and expense categorization for health care expenditures.
According to PayItGreen.org, paperless HSAs could eliminate over 39 million pounds of wasted paper, save over 474,000 trees and avoid release of over one billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
"More and more Americans are taking greater control of their health care choices enrolling in consumer-directed health care plans. At the same time, consumers increasingly view companies that offer sustainable products and services as preferred vendors. With the health care and banking industries cluttered with paper and unnecessary offline administration, Canopy's Green HSA is a bold step toward reducing administrative costs while benefiting our environment," said Canopy CEO Vik Kashyap.
The Green HSA features also include mobile phone connectivity for health care banking alerts and real-time online credit decisions. Plans are also underway to include access to mutual funds which invest exclusively in environmentally friendly companies, along with access to information on preferred environmentally conscious health care facilities and service providers.
Serving health care and financial institutions, Canopy powers the development and delivery of complete health care banking services for both consumers and businesses.
--mdigiovanni@cutimes.com
CIGNA Offers Cost Estimator to Aid Patients
CIGNA is gearing up to take the mystery out of medical payments for patients and health care professionals.
This April, the Bloomfield, Conn., firm will launch the CIGNA cost of care estimator, which will let patients and health care professionals know the total cost to be charged for medical services based on the individual's specific health plan.
The estimator's real-time cost estimates detail portions of the bill to be paid by the CIGNA health plan and by the covered individuals' sources of liability whether that is out-of-pocket costs due to co-insurance or co-pays or their flexible spending accounts, health reimbursement arrangements and health savings accounts.
The move is designed to help people better understand their benefits and how much they will owe for specific services prior to services being delivered. Available for all medical services including high-cost procedures, the estimator has also been created to help in the transparency of payment arrangements, anticipating account contributions to pay for services in the future, and discussions around treatment options.
"Every other service industry provides estimates of cost prior to service-for the first time we are systematically trying to do this for health care," said Jeffrey Kang, CIGNA's chief medical officer. "From the customer's perspective we are helping them make informed choices prior to service and avoiding potential sticker shock. From the physician's perspective, we are reducing the risk of bad debt because the individual is informed prior to service. Overall, this will improve the doctor-patient relationship and allow them to focus on the more important goal of health improvement."
The launch of the estimator tool follows last year's CIGNA care connections, an online physician, hospital and care decision-support capability that integrates health information, quality information, cost of care and questions to ask a doctor using simple, symptom-based searches.
The health care banking technology solutions provider based in San Francisco has created an offering designed to appeal to clients interested in providing more environmentally friendly, sustainable products and services.
The Green HSA offers consumers a 100% paperless account from enrollment to account management, with electronic statements and expense categorization for health care expenditures.
According to PayItGreen.org, paperless HSAs could eliminate over 39 million pounds of wasted paper, save over 474,000 trees and avoid release of over one billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
"More and more Americans are taking greater control of their health care choices enrolling in consumer-directed health care plans. At the same time, consumers increasingly view companies that offer sustainable products and services as preferred vendors. With the health care and banking industries cluttered with paper and unnecessary offline administration, Canopy's Green HSA is a bold step toward reducing administrative costs while benefiting our environment," said Canopy CEO Vik Kashyap.
The Green HSA features also include mobile phone connectivity for health care banking alerts and real-time online credit decisions. Plans are also underway to include access to mutual funds which invest exclusively in environmentally friendly companies, along with access to information on preferred environmentally conscious health care facilities and service providers.
Serving health care and financial institutions, Canopy powers the development and delivery of complete health care banking services for both consumers and businesses.
--mdigiovanni@cutimes.com
CIGNA Offers Cost Estimator to Aid Patients
CIGNA is gearing up to take the mystery out of medical payments for patients and health care professionals.
This April, the Bloomfield, Conn., firm will launch the CIGNA cost of care estimator, which will let patients and health care professionals know the total cost to be charged for medical services based on the individual's specific health plan.
The estimator's real-time cost estimates detail portions of the bill to be paid by the CIGNA health plan and by the covered individuals' sources of liability whether that is out-of-pocket costs due to co-insurance or co-pays or their flexible spending accounts, health reimbursement arrangements and health savings accounts.
The move is designed to help people better understand their benefits and how much they will owe for specific services prior to services being delivered. Available for all medical services including high-cost procedures, the estimator has also been created to help in the transparency of payment arrangements, anticipating account contributions to pay for services in the future, and discussions around treatment options.
"Every other service industry provides estimates of cost prior to service-for the first time we are systematically trying to do this for health care," said Jeffrey Kang, CIGNA's chief medical officer. "From the customer's perspective we are helping them make informed choices prior to service and avoiding potential sticker shock. From the physician's perspective, we are reducing the risk of bad debt because the individual is informed prior to service. Overall, this will improve the doctor-patient relationship and allow them to focus on the more important goal of health improvement."
The launch of the estimator tool follows last year's CIGNA care connections, an online physician, hospital and care decision-support capability that integrates health information, quality information, cost of care and questions to ask a doctor using simple, symptom-based searches.
