Patent ID: 7822624

Claim:
A method of providing eligibility information to a healthcare service provider and registering a point-of-sale terminal of the healthcare service provider, the method comprising: receiving, at a host computer system, healthcare service provider program participation registration information over a financial network from the point-of-sale terminal, the healthcare service provider program participation registration information including a first identifier identifying the point-of-sale terminal and an identification of the healthcare service provider; determining, by the host computer system using the first identifier, that the healthcare service provider is eligible to be a participant in a healthcare service provider program by performing a lookup to determine if the healthcare service provider has previously registered with the host computer system using healthcare service provider program participation registration materials, wherein the healthcare service provider program includes providing subscriber eligibility information to the healthcare service provider regarding a subscriber's eligibility to receive healthcare services from the healthcare service provider; creating, by the host computer system, a healthcare service provider record including the healthcare service provider program participation registration information, wherein the healthcare service provider record is utilized in identifying the healthcare service provider during subsequent requests to provide subscriber eligibility information to the healthcare service provider; determining, by the host computer system, a confirmation of healthcare service provider program participation registration; linking, by the host computer system, the first identifier with information identifying a device disposed at a location of the healthcare service provider in a database, wherein the device is different from the point-of-sale terminal; establishing a communication path to the device with the information identifying the device; and transmitting the confirmation of healthcare service provider program participation registration of the point-of-sale terminal to the device over the communication path before receiving a subscriber eligibility authorization request to determine if the subscriber is eligible to receive healthcare services from the healthcare service provider.