Digital Healthcare: Contactless Payments in a Post-COVID World

As the U.S. healthcare system navigates through continuing waves of COVID-19, it is already clear that some of the changes adopted during the early months of the pandemic are transforming healthcare payments for the future. New processes prompted by the dramatic decline in face-to-face contact and rapid increase in telehealth visits accelerated the trend toward digitization and automation of payments.

Yet while much of this digital healthcare transformation was driven by the challenges of the pandemic, it will create ongoing benefits throughout the system.

With elective procedures canceled, some staff working remotely, and telemedicine replacing many office interactions, digital solutions like patient portals and contactless payments went from aspirational to operational almost overnight. Yet, the convenience they created for consumers and efficiencies they enabled for providers showcased a need for a digital transition that had been building for years.