Patent ID: 8688475

Claim:
A method for improving clinical trial compliance for a business entity, the method comprising: creating a clinical trial protocol associated with a clinical trial that includes information associating one or more medical services and their respective cost data with an insurance company and a clinical trial sponsor, a schedule of appointments of medical services included in the clinical trial, information identifying which appointments in the schedule of appointments are permitted to be rescheduled, and information identifying one or more patients as clinical trial subjects, the clinical trial protocol established as a first subsystem; establishing a second subsystem including a software application that schedules appointments for clinical trial subjects; establishing a third subsystem including a software application that generates invoices for medical services provided for clinical trial subjects; storing the clinical trial protocol, the second subsystem and the third subsystem in a database of a computer system; providing communication means between the clinical trial protocol, the second subsystem and the third subsystem, wherein the computer system is configured to identify patients that are clinical trial subjects using the clinical trial protocol; determining, with the computer system, that one of the one or more patients that is a clinical trial subject did not attend at least one appointment in the schedule of appointments; determining, with the computer system, whether the clinical trial protocol permits rescheduling of appointments; removing, with the computer system, the one of the one or more patients who did not attend the at least one appointment from the clinical trial when the clinical trial protocol does not permit rescheduling of appointments or keeping the one of the one or more patients as a clinical trial subject if the clinical trial protocol does permit rescheduling of appointments; performing a particular medical service during the clinical trial on one of the one or more patients that is a clinical trial subject and determining a corresponding medical service cost; comparing the particular medical service against the clinical trial protocol to determine whether the particular medical service is included in the clinical trial protocol; generating an invoice, using the third subsystem, directed to (1) the insurance company to reimburse at least a portion of the medical service cost when the particular medical service is identified in the clinical trial protocol as associated with the medical service cost data for the insurance company or (2) the clinical trial sponsor to reimburse at least a portion of the medical service cost when the particular medical service is identified in the clinical trial protocol as associated with the medical service cost data for the clinical trial sponsor.