Patent ID: 8788293

Claim:
A system for providing right-time claim adjudication and payment for patient healthcare services that are provided at a provider location, where payment may be made by multiple payer sources, the system comprising: a point of sale (POS) device for use by a provider in entering patient information for a patient, including at least patient ID information associated with the patient and a healthcare treatment code for the patient healthcare services provided to the patient; a display device communicatively coupled to the POS device; a host computer for receiving the patient information from the POS device, for submitting the patient information as a healthcare claim to a first payer source after the patient healthcare services have been provided to the patient, for submitting the patient information to an estimating system, for receiving from the estimating system estimated explanation of benefits (EOB) information in the form of an estimated EOB statement and in response to the healthcare claim, and for providing the estimated EOB information to the POS device for display at the display device, the estimated EOB information generated by the estimating system as an estimated adjudication of the healthcare claim and including at least information on an estimated patient portion amount of a provider charge that is not to be paid by the first payer source, wherein the estimating system calculates the estimated EOB information based on data reflecting one of more of the following factors: location of the provider; identity of the first payer source; identity of a healthcare plan that is administered by the first payer source and that is applicable to the patient; and accuracy of prior estimates for healthcare claims; whereby the patient authorizes payment of the patient portion on a real-time basis to the provider while the patient is at the provider location in response to the estimated EOB information displayed at the display device associated with POS device; and wherein the first payer source provides to the host computer final EOB information in the form of a final EOB statement in response to the healthcare claim to the first payer source and based on adjudication of the healthcare claim, the final EOB information separate from the estimated EOB information, and wherein a patient portion amount in the separate final EOB information is reconciled against the patient portion amount in the estimated EOB information.