ABSTRACT
The average healthcare transaction is very complex. Handling payment for a simple medical procedure, for example, is quite different from the average retail transaction. The healthcare payment may be split among as many as six different entities: the guarantor, the primary insurer, the secondary insurer, in some cases the tertiary insurer, the patient, and perhaps even the state or federal government. In cases not involving payment, medical charting for example, the accuracy of the data in the transaction might be of life and death importance. This poses many unique challenges to those that seek to apply automated identification technologies to the healthcare industry. The most well-known and successful technologies to come out of the automated identification industry are bar coding and swipe cards. They have been so successful in payment applications for so long, that it is difficult to imagine improving them. But where healthcare is concerned, these technologies have only recently evolved to a point where they can offer meaningful solutions.
