Jordan Kelley, CEO of Enter, Inc., on Blockchain and Healthcare

When the intersection of blockchain and healthcare are discussed, the two uses mentioned the most are security and data interoperability. Both security and data interoperability are vital to the health sector, and the current systems leave a lot of room for improvement. While blockchain will be able to vastly improve these areas, it’s application can reach much farther.

Integrating blockchain into healthcare would solve many of the issues troubling the industry today. Blockchain could make improvements in drug development, supply chain integrity, claims and billing management, and data security.

Drug development and supply chain integrity
Blockchain will make patient results more accessible to researchers, resulting in new drug developments. Research could also be made more widely available, which would also help in drug and therapies development. For clinical trials, patients de-identified data would be kept in a database that researchers could use to recruit patients for these trials.

In terms of supply chain, it could help by reducing the amount of counterfeit drugs available on the market. The issue of counterfeit drugs has been growing in the United States, and they cost pharmaceutical companies an estimated $200 billion in losses every year. Blockchain could help by maintaining a database of drug suppliers licensure.

Claims and billing management
It’s estimated that 5-10% of healthcare costs are fraudulent. These costs result either from excessive billing or services that were never performed. A blockchain-based system could provide a realistic solution that would help to eliminate these fraudulent costs. Blockchain could also help to automate the process of approving or denying a medical claim.

Enter Inc. is a technology aiming to help reduce the amount of medical debt that is unpaid. Enter Inc. gets insurance claims submitted and paid in 24 hours, while automatically collecting patient out of pocket costs. Enter’s wallet and payment platform uses AI to automatically communicate with patients and helps them set up payment plans.

Data security
In 2016, there was an average of at least one health data breach per day. This affected more than 27 million patients records. In the largest breach, 3.62 million patient records were affected at one time. The growth of the Internet of Medical Things and the need for connected devices creates an issue with security. Blockchain has the necessary infrastructure to help keep health data private and secure, while also allowing medical devices to connect with each other.

About the Author

Jordan Kelley is a serial entrepreneur based in San Francisco. Currently the CEO of Enter, Inc., a medical billing platform, Kelley has extensive experience in the technology and financial services industries. Kelley graduated from Babson College in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in entrepreneurship and finance. Skilled in strategy, financial technology, entrepreneurship, and venture capital, Jordan Kelley is the co-founder of jobbi.com, Hero, and Robocoin.