How are Digital Payments Impacting the Healthcare Industry?

Digitalization is inevitable, and its prevalence is almost in every industry. How can the healthcare industry lag in this digital run? A large number of ways are available for patients through digital payment methods to settle their hospitalization bills, pre & post-medical treatment care bills, medical insurance payments, to pay pharma bills, therapeutic treatments, and other laboratory fees, etc. Online transactions save time and manual paperwork, avoid large in-person cash transactions, and other hurdles in cash transactions.

Opting for a digital payment method gives the end-users convenience during panic situations while dealing with healthcare, for example, sudden hospitalization of a patient. It allows a freedom of digital payment that one do from anywhere and anytime. Therefore, the healthcare industry is witnessing a large societal shift towards digital transactions, which ultimately fuels the growth of the healthcare digital payment market. Moreover, a huge adoption of smartphones and secure mobile banking apps are mainly contributing to boosting the growth of digital payments in healthcare. According to the Global System Operators and Manufacturers Association (GSMA), around 76% of people have adopted smartphones worldwide, and expected to go up to 92% by 2030.

Importance of Digital Payments in Healthcare

Adoption of digital payment helps both patients and healthcare facilities to streamline payment transactions and avoids time-consuming traditional payment processes. It improves transaction efficiency and accuracy, which enables healthcare industry service & product providers to benefit due to improved cash flow in the industry. Furthermore, it reduces the administrative burden of multiple prescriptions & billing receipts with taxation and medical insurance settlements.

Enhanced Patient Experience

The most important use of digital payment is that it gives convenience and easy accessibility to complete transactions. Increased smartphone usage is the best way to do online transactions through e-banking applications, providing a simplified billing and invoicing process. The main advantage of digital payment is real-time payment tracking, and it notifies both the sender and receiver.

Improved Financial Management

Automation of revenue cycle and financial management is necessary for every organization, and healthcare is not an exception. The use of digital payment in healthcare helps to integrate and maintain electronic health records (EHRs) and reduce the possibilities of payment delays and denials. Furthermore, e-payments generate digital footprints, which are used further through data analysis. All these insights for financial planning are essential for healthcare facilities to keep a record of forecasting future business strategies.?

?

Ensuring Security and Compliance

In an era of encryption and tokenization, digital payment provides secure payment facilities. Even though data breach is a threat to online transactions still, digital payments can be traced frauds can be prevented, and government/banking machinery can help retrieve the stolen money. Safety compliance must be with industry regulations like HIPAA and PCI-DSS to avoid cyber threats and protect patient privacy.

?

Expansion of Telehealth Services

All this tech revolution helped the telehealth sector due to the existence of digital payment, which boosted it during the pandemic. The connection between digital payments and telehealth is crucial for the growth of this market, which enables access to medical consultation for remotely located patients by paying consultation fees through digital mode. This digital payment has created ample amount of opportunities for the global healthcare market.

?

Addressing Healthcare Disparities

Digital payments have increased the participation of people due to the remote and easy accessibility of healthcare services. Increasing financial inclusion in the digital world is reducing the gap and barriers to healthcare products and services, especially in the type of telehealth services. Digital payments are empowering the individuals who were underserved previously.

?

Challenges and Considerations

However, digital payment in healthcare is facing adoption barriers as many healthcare providers in developing countries don't allow digital payments to evade tax authorities. Similarly, many end-users are not educated enough and are aware of digital payment methods. In addition, data and privacy breaches are common concerns among the end-users, which hampers the new participation of individuals. Furthermore, ensuring equitable access to digital payment options for every patient is challenging.

?

Way forward

The healthcare industry is expected to experience a positive impact from digital payments, with high participation of new users anticipated. Therefore, the market has potential and will grow in the near future. Healthcare providers and patients are likely to adopt digital payment solutions, but data breaches and cyberattacks may hinder the adoption. However, the increasing investment flow in the healthcare industry specifically into the digital payment industry showcases that the market will grow. Rising number of partnerships and collaborations for better financial compliances and provide better financial management facilities will help the healthcare and digital payments market run the market growth.

?Other Related Reports:

Cryptocurrency Market

Bitcoin Market

Payment Gateway Market