WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- Intuit, the company that created popular software like Quicken for personal finance, QuickBooks for small-business accounting, and tax-filing aid TurboTax, has announced the impending release of Quicken for Health Care.
The new software is aimed at those baffled by the inaptly named "Explanation of Benefits" forms sent out by health-insurance companies.
Much like TurboTax, the new product, which will likely be released early in 2007, will electronically pull together billing information from insurers, providers, labs and pharmacies and present it to consumers in a coordinated, easy-to-understand format.
"This software is going to help people make sense of the flood of administrative and payment information on healthcare," Intuit Senior Vice President of Health Care Michael Battaglia told United Press International.
"It will help people make sense of it all in a way that is simple, accessible and does most of the work behind the scenes for you," said Battaglia, formerly chief consumer officer at insurance giant Humana.
Such information will be particularly invaluable for consumers who find themselves caught up in the current push for consumer-directed health plans, where they are expected to take increasing responsibility for making health-spending decisions -- and paying for them out-of-pocket.
"The time is right," Battaglia said. "Consumers are being asked to take on much more decision-making today and they don't have the tools to do it."
Intuit -- which raked in $2 billion in revenues in 2005 -- has earned a reputation as the leader in demystifying paperwork for consumers in part because of its unique approach to determining what consumers need.
The company sends observers, also known as "commercial anthropologists," into the homes of consumers to identify their most vexing frustrations.
In the realm of healthcare, one of the largest concerns was figuring out who to pay and when, Battaglia said.
In an earlier version of the product, consumers were responsible for manually entering data in the software, which would then crunch numbers on their behalf.
But the company decided that was not simple enough and partnered with leaders across the healthcare industry to make it possible for the product to electronically collect the information consumers will need.
"Health insurance is not a consumer-friendly industry, it's not in their DNA," Battaglia said. "We will work with them to deliver on the promise of consumer-directed plans."
Early partners include the large insurer United Health, Hewitt Associates, a human resources outsourcing and consulting firm; provider group Optima Health, and Exante Financial Services, a leader in the health savings account market.
Another key partner is Ingenix, a company that already specializes in moving healthcare information for health plans, physician groups and academic centers, and large global clinical trials.
Most of the information consumers need is already available, Bill Whitely, chief marketing officer at Ingenix, told UPI. What is needed is an interface that allows them to "spend less time organizing information and more time acting on it."
At this early stage, he said, that could be even more important than other priorities like electronic health records, although having such a consumer-friendly portal would be a good starting point for such further efforts.
"We've got many years of work to make healthcare work for consumers," he said, "but that means there are many years of opportunity ahead."
By attempting to simplify healthcare administration in this way, Intuit is pioneering a new market, Eric Brown, research director of healthcare at market-research company Forrester Research Inc., told UPI.
"This is a new market -- but it's timely," he said, and not just for people in consumer-directed plans.
"Most people worry about healthcare paperwork; this is not a niche product," Brown said, adding that market research indicates more than half of Americans have disputed a health-insurance claim in the past year.
But as consumer responsibilities continue to increase, the market will only expand, he said. "Healthcare cost is a concern for Americans, but we are also in a shifting mode where consumers are expected to pay more out-of-pocket for healthcare.
"Tools to help manage costs are going to become much more popular over time."
