Hospital offers on-line payment service

(CNS): The Health Services Authority (HSA) has become one of the first public authorities to offer the public the ability to pay on-line, in an effort to get more customers to pay their bills on time. The creation of an online payment service in conjunction with FirstCaribbean International Bank will allow customers to pay their medical bills electronically. While most government departments are still wanting cash or at best debit card payments the HSA is taking a more modern approach at least for those people banking with First Caribbean. Officials said the service reduces time, cost and risks related to handling cheques and cash, provides round-the-clock flexibility and access.

The system eliminates the trouble of creating monthly standing orders, and the time and trouble customers need to take to visit HSA offices and stand in line. HSA Chief Executive Officer Lizzette Yearwood said the arrangement with FirstCaribbean International Bank was a major step forward for the healthcare provider, and that she was encouraged by the convenience it provided to bank customers.

“It is a hopeful sign and very much the direction in which the HSA has long needed to move,” she said. “It is a tremendous facility, of course, for FirstCaribbean customers, but, more than that, a great opportunity for us as we consolidate the gains we have made in achieving financial stability. We hope this will bring home to people how important it is that they pay their HSAbills in a timely fashion.”

Yearwood said she hoped it would help give the authority a similar profile to other service providers such as the telephone, water and electricity companies.

Richard Lewis, Cash Management Sales Associate at FirstCaribbean International Bank, said that making authority invoices part of the bank’s online facilities would help the public understand that the HSA was similar to other local businesses.

“Recognising that the HSA is among the most prominent local organisations with which almost everyone in Cayman comes in contact at one time or another, and realising how important it is that people pay their HSA bills on time, we have worked long and hard with the authority to create this facility,” he said “By putting the authority into the system alongside other Cayman businesses, we make it easy to gain access to HSA payment facilities, enabling the organisation to become part of everyone’s regular monthly bill-paying routine.”

Customers wishing to use the service must have a FirstCaribbean deposit account and a registration agreement for internet banking. The bank will configure the details and then once an internet customer people can click on the “Bill Payments” section, register their bill, then select from a drop-down menu the name of the company they wish to pay whichwill now include the HSA.Users will enter account details, then hit “verify” and then “confirm registration”. Once they have entered the amount to be paid, the bank account they wish to use, clicking on “pay bill” at the bottom of the page completes the payment.

“We think this will prove a popular and added-value service for our customers, and we are pleased to be able to offer it,” said Lewis. “Anything that helps streamline the financial well-being of Cayman’s main healthcare provider must be a good thing.”