By Bruce Jaspen | April 2, 2018

An effort to apply blockchain technology to improve inaccurate doctor directories of health plans is the goal of a new partnership between UnitedHealth Group and its Optum unit, Humana, Quest Diagnostics and MultiPlan.

The healthcare companies have no plans to develop bitcoin or a form of cryptocurrency. Rather, healthcare companies involved in a pilot program announced Monday are going to use blockchain’s ability to secure data and distribute it in an encrypted way to make sure the most current information is available in health plan provider directories.

“The idea is that we use a blockchain as a way to streamline the back office operations of the payers,” Optum senior distinguished engineer Mike Jacobs said in an interview.

 The use of blockchain technology will hopefully avoid the all too common problem that occurs when a claim comes through from the provider and it mismatches with the information the insurance company has in its provider directory. Health plans with out-of-date information can cause patient claims to be unpaid and administrative headaches for physicians and their office staffs. “That happens because there are two islands of information and there’s a need for reconciliation,” Optum’s Jacobs said.

There’s a financial reason for the insurers involved to want to improve the accuracy of medical care provider directories. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services penalizes insurers for inaccurate medical care provider directories. Earlier this year, CMS found 52% of Medicare Advantage plan provider “directory locations had at least one inaccuracy.”

“With increasing state and federal requirements relating to provider data maintenance and quality, tackling the high cost and redundancy in this space is a logical starting point,” MultiPlan’s vice president of operations David Murtagh said in a statement accompanying Monday’s announcement.

The pilot will run over the summer and the companies hope to report their findings in the fall.

“With the explosion of health data, organizations need better ways to share and harness information to yield clinical and economic value,” Quest Diagnostics chief information officer Lidia Fonseca said. “We are connected to more than 650 (electronic health record) platforms and a majority of health systems and physicians in the U.S., so we bring a unique level of insight into how to connect people and organizations across health care.”

Original Article