Health care eligibility verification and settlement systems and methods

A point-of-care terminal for processing a healthcare transaction by a healthcare provider, the point-of-care terminal comprising:

• a reader configured to read information from an information encoding region of a healthcare eligibility and settlement presentation instrument associated with a patient;
• a computer-readable storage device;
• a processor configured to process a healthcare transaction based on the information, wherein the healthcare transaction comprises a healthcare eligibility verification transaction and a healthcare settlement transaction, wherein the healthcare transaction involves debiting a stored value account associated with funds designated for healthcare expenses and the processor is configured to execute computer-readable code stored on the computer-readable storage device, the code including:
• code for retrieving patient data from a track of a magnetic stripe of a healthcare presentation instrument, the healthcare presentation instrument associated with a patient;
• code for generating a request for a healthcare information packet based on the patient data from the healthcare presentation instrument;
• code for transmitting the request for the healthcare information packet to a healthcare eligibility verification system via a credit card transaction processing network;
• code for receiving the healthcare information packet from the healthcare eligibility verification system via the credit card transaction processing network;
• code for presenting at least part of the content of the healthcare information packet to the healthcare provider;
• code for retrieving stored-value account information from a different track of the magnetic stripe of the healthcare presentation instrument, wherein the stored value account information identifies a stored value account associated with funds designated for healthcare expenses;
• code for generating a request to debit the stored-value account;
• and
• code for transmitting the request to debit the stored-value account to a financial settlement system via the credit card transaction processing network, wherein the financial settlement system is separate from the healthcare eligibility system.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage device encoded with program code for controlling operation of a computing device for processing a healthcare transaction by a healthcare provider, the program code comprising:

• code for retrieving patient data from a first track of a magnetic stripe of a healthcare presentation instrument, the healthcare presentation instrument associated with a patient;
• code for generating a request for a healthcare information packet based on the patient data from the healthcare presentation instrument;
• code for transmitting the request for a healthcare information packet to a healthcare eligibility verification system via a credit card transaction processing network;
• code for receiving a healthcare information packet from the healthcare eligibility verification system via the credit card transaction processing network;
• code for presenting at least part of the content of the healthcare information packet to the healthcare provider;
• code for retrieving stored-value account information from a second track of the magnetic stripe of the healthcare presentation instrument;
• code for transmitting a debit request to debit a stored value account associated with funds designated for healthcare expenses to a financial settlement system via the credit card transaction processing network, wherein the financial settlement system is separate from the healthcare eligibility system;
• and
• code for receiving a confirmation associated with the debit request from the financial settlement system via the credit card transaction processing network.