Today in Healthcare: Paceline Card Links Health to Rewards, Blue Shield Teams With Google, Patient Experience Determines Loyalty

Today in healthcare, healthcare patients want better experiences, and Hackensack Meridian Health integrates with Google Workspace and Chrome OS devices to enhance patient care. Plus, Blue Shield and Google Cloud are working together on processing claims quicker, while the Paceline Health and Wellness Credit Card ties physical activity to credit card rewards.

Hackensack Meridian Fully Integrates with Google to Drive Patient Care Improvement

Hackensack Meridian Health is among the first medical care systems to integrate with Google Workspace and Chrome OS devices to improve the overall digital ecosystem for patient care by enhancing data security, boost practitioner productivity and make healthcare delivery more efficient.

The partnership will also use artificial intelligence and machine learning in clinical settings and enhance care for patients across New Jersey through Google Cloud services.

Paceline Announces Health and Wellness Credit Card

Unified wellness platform Paceline this week launched the Paceline Card, tying together credit card rewards and physical activity that’s tracked by an Apple Watch.

The Paceline Card reimburses cardholders for their Apple Watch purchases, including the new Series 7 model. Users who reach 150 minutes of exercise a week will unlock rewards, increased cash-back opportunities and other benefits.

63% of Patients Will Switch Healthcare Providers if Their Payment Experience Doesn’t Cut It

Recent PYMNTS research of 3,546 U.S. adults who have received healthcare services in the last year shows that eliminating payments friction determines patient loyalty, even for those with high levels of patient satisfaction with their care.

In our report, The Payment Cure: How Improving Billing Experiences Impacts Patient Loyalty, about five of every eight consumers (63%) said they would consider switching healthcare providers if they aren’t satisfied with how they pay and discover the costs connected to their care. That’s followed by totality of expense (38%), lack of a cost estimate before an appointment (38%), a complex billing process (36%), and absence of a payment plan or third-party financing (27%) in reasons people switch providers.

Blue Shield of California, Google Cloud Team on Payment Digitization

Blue Shield of California is working with Google Cloud to process payment claims in real time on a cloud platform, using automated processing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to digitize healthcare claims and boost the accuracy and timeliness of billing information.

The plan will help provide “clear, concise and correct” billing information, helping to forge a new national model to make healthcare billing “instantaneous and understandable,” according to the announcement. The goal in the long term is to expand the initiative to all providers, plan types and categories of claims processed.