Digital health company b.well Connected Health has partnered with Mastercard on creating a solution that enables patients to use their smartphones to confirm their identity when accessing healthcare services.
The b.well platform aims to bring together patient data across providers, insurers, pharmacies, and a patient’s own apps and devices, so people can share their information, manage their medications, understand their costs, and receive personalized health insights and alerts. Now, with the introduction of Mastercard's ID Verification service, b.well users will also be able to securely verify their identity in real time using their mobile phones, according to officials who made an announcement last week.
The partnership enables healthcare organizations to provide their members and patients with a biometric alternative to verify their identity in-person or virtually, replacing traditional processes involving physical documents such as a driver’s license. “Mastercard’s ID Verification service employs a combination of government ID document scanning, facial biometrics with liveness detection, and mobile phone intelligence to deliver high success rates for automated user verification,” officials stated.
This effort represents Mastercard's first foray into healthcare, using technology the company has deployed in the financial services sector, including using biometrics and other data to verify identity.
b.well said it will offer the service to its health plan and health system customers. ThedaCare, a seven-hospital Wisconsin health system that has made b.well available to its communities under the name “Ripple,” is the first U.S. health system to use Mastercard ID Verification. Healthcare Innovation explored the existing Thedacare/b.well partnership in a story last fall that looked at how the health system deployed a “Return to Work” solution to its team members in an effort to safeguard front-line workers and ensure they check in daily on any COVID-19 symptoms or exposure.
“As part of our mission of creating a healthier community, we strive to make it easier for our patients and community members to use digital tools to engage with our providers and manage their health,” said Jim Albin, CIO of ThedaCare. “The Mastercard ID Verification provided through Ripple offers added safety and security for them to use their smartphones to verify their identity when accessing virtual care or sharing personal medical information, adding convenience as well as peace of mind.”
What’s more, Mastercard ID Verification is designed to comply with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2), the federal government’s highest level of assurance for remote consumer-facing identity proofing. The NIST IAL2 benchmark is cited as a requirement in many healthcare use cases involving patient data sharing, aligned with the ONC Cures Act Final Rule for secure patient access to their medical record.
Indeed, starting Monday, April 5, per the Office of the Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) Cures Act Final Rule, healthcare organizations must start complying with the government’s information blocking regulations, which are broadly designed to make access to their electronic health records (EHRs) available to all patients through their smartphones.
To that end, a recent survey conducted by b.well of 500 U.S. adult consumers confirmed overwhelming interest among consumers in using their smartphones to access medical and health insurance information, with 86 percent of respondents reporting that they either want to use their smartphones to access this information, or already do so. What’s more, asked to rank their preference for various digital security protocols used by organizations to identify people before granting access to health information, respondents ranked Digital ID first. They ranked the traditional username and password credentials second, while verbal confirmation of identity over the phone ranked third.
“Consumers want to use their phones to connect with their doctors, get information about their insurance, and share sensitive information with trusted sources, but the process for authenticating themselves is complicated, difficult, and not always secure,” said Kristen Valdes, CEO and founder of b.well. “Our partnership with Mastercard solves that problem by enabling consumers to protect their identity, while at the same time simplifying the verification of their identity, giving them more control over their personal information and streamlining interactions with their providers and health plan.”
