Providence St. Joseph Health, one of the nation’s largest health systems, today has acquired Lumedic, a next-generation revenue cycle management platform powered by blockchain technology. Providence St. Joseph Health will be the first integrated provider-payer system to establish a scalable blockchain platform to transform claims processing and enhance interoperability between providers and payers.
Optimizing Revenue Cycle Management
Reducing inefficiencies in revenue cycle management (RCM) has long been a challenge for the health care industry. Revenue cycle inefficiencies were responsible for more than $500 billion in U.S. health care costs in 2018 alone, largely due to industry complexities and manual processes, according to a McKinsey & Company analysis.
Traditional health system and hospital revenue cycle processes frequently rely on physical correspondence and fax machines for sending medical records, legacy systems for data storage, and employees who spend hours calling insurers on the status of claims.
Lumedic started with an $800 wellness visit and a misguided patient. Powered by blockchain technology, Lumedic builds on distributed ledger technology, smart contracts, and machine learning to deploy an efficient, secure, and trusted end-to-end platform for revenue cycle management. Payers and providers connecting to Lumedic’s intelligent network will be able to seamlessly share trusted information and collaborate on integrated business processes, reducing inefficiencies in the health care system and improving the patient experience.
Acquisition Details
Providence St. Joseph Health has acquired Lumedic’s assets and team to form a new company that will maintain the Lumedic brand and operating vision. Lumedic will work with Providence St. Joseph Health to explore partnerships with providers, insurers, and others. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
“Providence St. Joseph Health welcomes the Lumedic team and the focus on substantially improving the coordination of financial transactions between payers and providers. By disrupting these often cumbersome processes ourselves, we strive to lower administrative costs for both parties while getting deeper insight into the financial experience of patients and the ways we can simplify the process for them,” said Rhonda Medows, M.D., Providence St. Joseph Health president of population health and chief executive officer, Ayin Health Solutions.