Intuit to Transform the way Patients pay Their Doctors

New Products Help Healthcare Providers get Paid Faster, With Less Effort; Increase Patient Understanding and Satisfaction

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) is helping healthcare providers get paid by their patients an average of 18 days faster with its introduction of Quicken HealthSM Bill Pay.

A breakthrough in medical billing, this new online service helps patients - regardless of insurance carrier or coverage - view their medical bill in easy-to-understand language that explains services performed. It also shows how the amount due is calculated after insurance payments are posted, and enables fast, convenient electronic payment directly from the product.

When patients have the knowledge and confidence that a bill is correct, payments are made faster. This reduces the time, money, and effort billing managers spend repeatedly sending statements and calling patients about payments due.
Getting Paid Faster with Less Effort with Intuit Patient Payments

Providers that sign up for an Intuit Patient PaymentsSM account can begin offering Quicken Health Bill Pay to their patients that same day. Designed to work together, patients view and pay bills with Quicken Health Bill Pay, while the doctor’s office views, tracks and posts the payments online through Intuit Patient Payments.

To reduce the time between doctor visit and billing, Quicken Health Bill Pay alerts patients immediately after the insurance payment is posted and the balance becomes their responsibility. A 2008 Medical Group Management Association/Celent study showed that a bill sent within 30 days has a 90 percent chance of full payment. The longer billing is delayed, the lower the chances of full payment.

“Our offerings uniquely reduce costs for doctors while helping patient’s finally understand and pay their medical bills online,” said Peter Karpas, president and division general manager of Intuit’s Quicken Health Group. “This is another step in our efforts to improve communication and interaction between patients and their doctors, further reducing costs, improving office efficiency, and increasing patient satisfaction.”
Taking the Pain out of Paying and Receiving Medical Bills

Direct out-of-pocket payments from patients to providers are expected to total $660 billion by 2013, more than doubling payments made in 2005. By some estimates, half of what is owed to medical professionals is considered bad debt and research shows that 40 percent of patients don’t pay their medical bills simply because they don’t understand the bill or didn’t think they were responsible for the amount due.

And while American households with computers are increasingly paying bills online, more than 90 percent of medical payments are still received by providers in the form of a paper check. Quicken Health Bill Pay benefits providers by improving accuracy and reducing the time billing managers spend taking payments over the phone or keying in payment information sent through the mail.

“Our patients are so excited to pay online and not have to mail in check or credit card payments. They also enjoyed viewing their own account,” said Gary Armstrong, chief financial officer of Arkansas Urology, one of the Quicken Health Bill Pay pilot testers. “Anytime you can make it easier for patients to pay, that’s a good thing.”

Quicken Health Bill Pay brings the convenience of electronic payments to medical bills, letting patients send payments anytime, from any computer, using a debit and credit card, as well as Flexible Spending Accounts or Health Savings Accounts.

“I procrastinate with hard copy bills,” said Shirley Bacon, a patient from Georgia. “I have a medical bill that is six months old and if Quicken Health Bill Pay was available earlier, this bill would have been paid off already. This is a great tool.”

As part of the more than a quarter of a million small businesses that use Intuit’s payment processing products, thousands of healthcare practices today are using an Intuit Patient Payments account for payment processing, merchant account, and check scanning solutions to accept payments at the time of service, right in their place of business. Quicken Health Bill Pay complements these offerings to create an unmatched suite of healthcare payment solutions.

“Intuit brings a unique ability to understand patient and provider problems and create easy-to-use solutions that perfectly fit their needs,” said Glen Tullman, chief executive officer at Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX), whose electronic healthcare solutions help 160,000 U.S. physicians improve the health of their patients and their bottom line. “These offerings solve many billing problems for our physician clients and we’re looking forward to working with Intuit on addressing additional patient and provider challenges in the future.”

Providers interested in learning more or offering Quicken Health Bill Pay to their patients can sign up at www.IntuitPatientPayments.com. Patients interested in using Quicken Health Bill Pay should ask their doctor to offer it.

Intuit will showcase Quicken Health Bill Pay at Booth 333 at the Medical Group Management Association show, in Denver from Oct. 11-14.