With the rise of FinTech applications across most, if not all, industries around the world, healthcare might be the most benefiting of those industries, especially since several medical institutions complicate medical attention if the patients do not pay before being treated.

With 46% of people exclusively using digital channels for their financial needs (per Fortunly) and the estimate by Finances Online that 90% of global mobile users will use at least one banking platform on the go by 2020, it’s safe to say that FinTech is here to stay, and it definitely could remedy several complications found in the healthcare industry today.

The financial and healthcare industries could greatly benefit from a merger at different levels, which will benefit all the parties involved and especially the most important one: the consumer. Allowing medical expenses to be paid on the spot is priceless in this day and age, but that’s not the only advantage. Let’s explore the ways that FinTech can help out the healthcare sector.

Digital-Centric Transactions

Looking at healthcare, medical billing can greatly benefit from adopting digital payments and can easily adapt to it.

Recurrent and one-time medical bills could be paid easily and conveniently, without the need for cash at hand. This also includes any medical expenses and buying medicine off the counter, where payments are made available through secure & reliable digital platforms like mobile banking apps. Digitizing the medical payment processes will surely enhance operations across the board, resulting in a safer, greener and more sustainable healthcare system.

AI-Driven Decision Making

Raw data is the unsung hero of the medical system, and thorough analysis and visualization of the available medical data around the world is crucial to a healthy and disease-free future. This complicated process can be a lot more simplified and hastened with the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms into healthcare, in order to provide more in-depth analysis and proper data visualization to improve decision-making processes in medicine.

In addition to making healthcare more affordable and granting easier access to data, AI can help in early detection of medical conditions and provide more accurate medical recommendations around the world, provided that the medical staff is aligned in terms of complementing the AI-based tasks to guarantee the best possible outcome for patients on an international level.

Increased Data Security

Although the healthcare industry is less prone to cyber-attacks and data breaches than FinTech itself, the data held at medical institutions around the world are still confidential and should be protected at all costs from any external intrusion. The same robust & secure data protection measures should be applied to the medical sector, where securing it from potential fraud and theft is a critical measure that should be used to reassure the public of the safety and privacy of their data.

Like FinTech, multi-step validation and verification processes can be used to ensure the privacy of patients’ data and to secure the sharing of sensitive, personal information between medical institutions. Furthermore, it should be communicated by medical entities when applying these digital process that the patients (or their caretakers) are the only ones that can give explicit consent for the availability of his or her data, establishing trust across the global healthcare industry.

Conclusion

The disruptive nature of financial technology has been witnessed by almost anyone that has used it in any form or way, and it’s this unique aspect of it that can inspire relevant ideas and innovative concepts in the field of healthcare. We, the human race, benefit greatly when the healthcare system is at the forefront of technological advancement. When time and resources are invested into that indispensable ecosystem, it will lead to better patient treatments, quicker processing, decreased costs and better security for everyone involved in the healthcare cycle. Moving forward, this will improve and enhance the livelihood of the global population as a whole.

Tags

Healthcare, Medicine, digital transactions, mobile finance, artificial intelligence, AI, machine learning, ML, data analysis, data security, cyber-attacks, data privacy