What Is Blockchain in Healthcare?
Blockchain is penetrating several sectors, including the medical industry. The technology is creating innovative solutions to help medical service providers with modern solutions. Blockchain in healthcare allows businesses increase operational efficiency while securing data. It allows data exchange between insurance providers, billing companies, doctors, and other stakeholders.
If you are a hospital, medical billing company, or an NEMT provider wondering how blockchain-based solutions can benefit your business, this post is for you.
Centralized and Transparent Health Records
According to research conducted at John Hopkins, the third biggest reason for deaths in America are errors due to irregular medical records. Blockchain-based solutions will help the industry create a centralized database for records. This will allow a transparent view of any patient’s medical records/history.
Once everyone can view a patient’s medical history from the same file, there will be no room for errors. Patients will get the same treatment based on their existing health conditions. The doctor can also update the records directly in the block so others can use it in real-time.
Transparent Supply Chain
Verifying the authenticity of medical goods is a notorious challenge for the healthcare industry. The intuitive solution allows businesses to track their desired items in real-time. You can check where your item is anywhere along the supply chain.
Another beneficial use of blockchain in healthcare can help get rid of the evil of fake prescriptions. This is especially true in the developing markets. Medical appliances are quickly adopting new technology to monitor patient health remotely. A blockchain-based solution can help secure this information from falling into the wrong hands.
Blockchain-based solution providers are offering a wide selection of solutions. The solutions help you manage various operations. These include billing, monitoring, routing, scheduling and dispatching services, etc.
Secure Data Management
Statistically, there were 713 data breaches in the healthcare industry in 2021, costing millions to the industry. Therefore, you need a technology that has a strong safeguard against any online threat. However, you cannot completely isolate patients’ information. This is because many parties, including doctors, may need access from time to time.
Blockchain in healthcare can help resolve this issue as it will create a unified platform to hold all patients’ data. Anyone wishing to gain access to patients’ information must meet specific criteria. Once conditions are fulfilled, the requesting party can retrieve medical files and other relevant information. You will be able to store chunks of patients’ data in blocks that will react to a unique ID only.
Blockchain in healthcare can be a groundbreaking solution to help protect patients’ privacy. Apart from records safety, insurance companies can now expedite claims processes via smart contracts. Suppose a patient or billing company may submit the claim. In that case, the claim fulfills the requirements mentioned in the blockchain smart contract. Once all is clear, the claim will be accepted and approved without any hassle.
This also eliminates the problems caused by billing codes. Instead of getting denial for wrong coding, the claim submission party will be able to identify code errors and fix them to submit accurate claims. The flawless security will ensure that none of the data falls into the wrong hands.
Tracing the Drug Footprint
We all know that counterfeit drugs are one of the healthcare industry’s most dangerous risks. Applying blockchain in healthcare enables suppliers and medical facilities to authenticate the origin of any drugs.
Every data block holding information on a drug will be linked to each other, and there will be a timestamp that no one will be able to alter. A medicine buyer will now be able to verify if the medicine is genuine or not. The process will be simple:
- Scan the QR code
- Check the blockchain info about manufacturers. The viewer will also be able to see the details about when and where the medicine was made, whether there were any problems with this shipment, was it previously used (in case someone wants to reuse QR codes from used packages), etc.
This will make it impossible for culprits making fake medicines to penetrate the market at all.
Secure Financial Affairs
One of the business use-case for blockchain in the industry is secure transactions. With blockchain and smart contracts, the parties involved can make payments using cryptocurrency/coins. With time as the technology becomes mainstream, you may see that all medical bill payments might involve the use of virtual currency such as Bitcoin or stablecoin like USDT.
A micropayment is another very useful approach introduced by blockchain. This approach offers value-based options for patients who follow doctors’ guidelines. If a patient listens to the doctor and makes prescribed changes to the lifestyle, the doctor can reward the patient in various ways. This will also allow the doctors to record patients’ recovery and daily activity through reexamination.
Get Free Demo With ISI Technology
If you are a medical service provider or an NEMT looking for an automated solution, ISI Technology can be your strategic partner.
Whether it is financial and data security, billing, routing, or scheduling, ISI Technology has a solution to take care of all your business needs.