Alliance Activities : Publications : Healthcare Identity Authentication and Payments Convergence: A Vision for the Healthcare Industry

Healthcare Identity Authentication and Payments Convergence: A Vision for the Healthcare Industry

Publication Date: February 2016

The overall goal of a convergence vision for the healthcare industry is to leverage available technology components to add healthcare identity authentication applications to the existing payments infrastructure.  The Smart Card Alliance Health and Human Services Council developed this white paper to outline a vision for healthcare identity authentication and payments convergence and to provide insight into the opportunities and challenges afforded to the healthcare community as the U.S. migrates to EMV.

The United States is currently in the process of adopting EMV, a global standard used by payment applications residing on chip cards, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and payment terminals.  The U.S. move to EMV chip payments is driven by the payments industry’s desire to reduce card fraud, provide global interoperability, and enable safer payment transactions.  Meanwhile, healthcare-related fraud is at an all-time high, with billions of dollars lost annually.  Clearly, there is an immediate need to increase security for healthcare identity authentication and payments as well.

The emergence of the EMV-enabled POS infrastructure enables the convergence of healthcare identity authentication and payment; that is, for the healthcare industry to use available smart card and EMV technology to add healthcare identity authentication to the payments acceptance infrastructure.  By leveraging the EMV migration and consequent shift in POS technology, healthcare smart cards and the hardware infrastructure to support them are becoming a reality.

This white paper describes four scenarios for convergence of healthcare identity authentication and payments, with each discussing integration requirements and benefits and risks of the approach.  The white paper concludes with a “call to action” for the healthcare industry to leverage proven smart card-based technology, including the proven EMV payments infrastructure, increase security, decrease payment vulnerability, reduce fraud and improve workflow for healthcare entities.

About the White Paper

The Smart Card Alliance Health and Human Services Council developed this white paper to outline a vision for convergence and to provide insight into the opportunities and challenges afforded to the healthcare community as the U.S. migrates to EMV.

Smart Card Alliance that contributed to the white paper include: ABnote; Ingenico; MasterCard; LifeMed ID Inc.; Verifone; Visa Inc.; XTec, Inc.

About the Smart Card Alliance Health and Human Services Council

The Smart Card Alliance Health and Human Services Council brings together human services organizations, payers, healthcare providers, and technologists to promote the adoption of smart cards in U.S. health and human services organizations and within the national health IT infrastructure.  The Health and Human Services Council provides a forum where all stakeholders can collaborate to educate the market on the how smart cards can be used and to work on issues inhibiting the industry.