Pay Linx Financial Corporation has reached an agreement with a Canadian insurer to pilot a payment card to manage the real-time payment of health benefits provided under Health Care Spending Account.
A Health Care Spending Account (HCSA) can form part of a group benefit plan and allows plan members to be reimbursed for health-related expenses using pre-federal tax dollars.
HCSA can operate like a bank account: plan members start each plan year with a certain number of dollar credits in their HCSA; throughout the year, those credits may be used to pay for certain medical, vision and dental expenses.
The pilot project will involve the use of payment cards to be provided to pilot participants in the processing and payment of their health claims. Pay Linx will provide its payment card issued by a sponsor bank as a solution for the issuance, loading, and authorization of payment cards using existing financial networks, including support services.
During the pilot, Pay Linx will issue a maximum of 100 cards to participants and the insurer will enroll a minimum of 1,000 health care providers located in three Canadian cities. Under the pilot agreement, the insurer will pay half the development costs up to a specified limit.
Ian McNeill, president and CEO of Pay Linx, said: The pilot is intended to enable the integration of real time payment of benefits for health care organizations. This could lead to additional program offerings to streamline the payments of health care benefits providing better services to the consumer.