Patent ID: 8489426

Claim:
A medical shared savings system, comprising: a data store that stores medical plan information for a medical plan associated with a patient and an employer, the medical plan information including pricing data for a medical procedure for each of a plurality of medical providers in a medical plan network associated with the medical plan, the plurality of medical providers including at least one medical provider in a region outside of the United States, the medical plan having an associated established medical premium to be paid to an insurer, the pricing data including travel costs; and a medical shared savings unit connected with the data store and interacting with one or more computing devices via a communications network, the medical shared savings unit receiving a selection from one of the one or more computing devices to select the at least one medical provider in a region outside of the United States for a patient as part of a medical savings plan associated with the medical plan, accessing the medical plan information from the data store, and calculating a savings based on a difference between a cost of the medical procedure performed in the region outside of the United States and a cost of the medical procedure performed within the United States, the medical shared savings unit further dividing the savings between the insurer and the employer based on a medical savings plan model when the patient undergoes the medical procedure in the region outside of the United States, the savings being in the form of a lower medical premium that is lower than the established medical premium.