Two weeks ago, a new start-up company – PayDC.com – announced the upcoming release of the "First Cash Payment System," a promising and exciting new type of financial software system for healthcare providers. See www.paydc.com.

As the name "PayDC" suggests, the system will initially help doctors of chiropractic get paid. According to the company's web site, what makes the system so unique and different is that the system relies on law and legal know-how to help providers achieve that goal.

PayDC will also initially focus on one of the most challenging issues facing many providers today – how to collect the increasing patient-portion-due amounts. The system which claims to be "The First Cash Payment System for DCs," will assist providers in proactively creating, managing and explaining their discount and payment arrangements with their patients.

Whereas many billing software systems focus on submitting claims to insurance companies, PayDC is designed to help providers more easily collect amounts owed by the patient.

According to its web site, PayDC includes 5 core features:

1. A financially-functional Care Planner (based on Medicare requirements) which helps providers project or estimate the costs of care.
2. An Insurance Wizard. Initially, the purpose of the Insurance Wizard will be to help providers estimate and deduct the Required Insurance Discount amounts, as well as account for estimated insurance payments. The company has announced that the next series of releases will include a powerful "Insurance Verification" form as well as a full-featured "Insurance Payment Estimator" which will reflect the major types of limits, caps, and inputs recognized by health insurance plans.
3. Discount Module. The company claims that discounts, if they are to be granted, must be done in a legally-compliant fashion. Increasingly, insurance payers are scrutinizing the way providers discount their fees. According to its web site, PayDC helps providers apply discounts based on recognized discount rules under federal and state laws.
4. Payment Planner. The purpose of this function is to take the subtotals from the other functions, and then help the provider easily create a payment plan with the patient.
5. Integrated Features. One of the most promising aspects of the software is the way that the other core features are seamlessly tied together. The web site states that changes in the patient's situation can easily be cycled through the system to produce a new payment plan.

Given the major shift in the industry towards the "self-paying" patient, and rising concerns about discount and cash payment issues, this product appears to have arrived on the scene... and none too soon. The phrase, "self-pay," is increasingly being used to describe the situation where the patient is becoming increasingly responsible for more and more of the provider's charges.

According to CEO Randy Alexander, the product will initially focus on the chiropractic industry, but soon will be expanded to include the entire physiotherapy industry. He states that the product is based on over 40 years of collective experience in the legal, technical, and reimbursement arenas.

For more information, see www.paydc.com.