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Author: Dan Gendro

Apple Pay brings mobile payments to health care invoices

Dan Gendro | April 17, 2015

This type of transaction for iPhone users has now been integrated into the InstaMed network.

At the same time that a growing number of people are using mobile apps to help them to keep tabs on their health and fitness habits and progress, it has now been announced that Apple Pay is now integrated into the InstaMed network, which will make it possible for policyholders to pay their health insurance premiums and even their copayments with their devices.

This represents yet another way in which mobile devices are making their way into the health care industry.

This will make it possible for anyone in the InstaMed network to be able to accept mobile payment options through Apple Pay users. This includes the consumer facing apps of health care providers, venders, and payers, alike. That transaction service is currently limited to customers who use the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, as well as the iPad mini 3, the iPad Air 2, and – very shortly – the Apple Watch. The goal is to help to reduce the confusion associated with paying this sort of bill and to make it more simple and convenient for customers.

Apple Pay is considered to be an exceptionally innovative mobile payments technology.

Apple Pay - Health This helps to explain why it was the mobile payment program of choice for this network’s initial integration of the tech. According to the co-founder and CTO of InstaMed, Chris Seib, “Approximately 20 percent of consumers have unpaid health care bills as a result of confusion in the payments process. This will only grow as more and more consumers continue to enroll in high deductible health plans.”

Seib went on to explain that a technology as innovative as Apple’s mobile payments system has the capability to help to “resolve consumer confusion and rising bad debt” that has become highly problematic within the health care industry. He praised the security, simplicity and privacy of this payment process.

He also pointed out that beyond Apple Pay, mobile payments as a whole “are expected to reach $142 billion by 2019.” Therefore, he feels that it is important for the health care industry to leverage exactly this type of solution in order to be able to continue to meet the needs of consumers.

Mobile banking is being used, but this is only the beginning

Dan Gendro | April 13, 2015

More than half of smartphone owners in the United States currently use this type of app and service.

According to recently released survey data from the Federal Reserve and an analysis conducted by Business Insider, about half of all smartphone owning American adults are now using mobile banking in some form, but at the same time, there is still a long way to go before it can be considered to be truly mainstream.

Among the general population, not just smartphone owners, the uses of these services is considerably lower.

The data showed that in 2013 the percentage of American smartphone owners who were using mobile banking services was about 51 percent. By the same time the next year, it had risen to only 52 percent. While it is growing, and while this does mean that more than half of all of these individuals users are also taking advantage of these services, it shows that the rate of growth is very slow and there is still a great deal of room for this type of usage to improve.

The fastest mobile banking penetration growth is occurring more quickly specifically among smartphone users.

Mobile Banking - American Smartphone Users The general population may not be seeing a rapid growth, but when taking a more focused look at the people who actually have the devices, there was a rate of increase of 6 percent, compared to the tiny 1 percent seen by the general population.

When looking at American adults who have bank accounts, regardless of whether or not they were smartphone owners, there was a 5 percent increase in the use of banking services over mobile devices. Across the entire American population, the penetration of banking over mobile devices reached 34 percent in 2014.

It was pointed out that it is very unlikely for feature phone owners to try to use mobile banking services will see much of an increase. The reason is that banks have not been releasing the types of apps that would be usable in feature phones, when the population is rapidly making the transition over to smartphones and the vast majority of device owners have that specific type of cell phone.