Customer
How a Health Insurance Provider Accelerated Payments With Akana
The largest health insurer in their state (a $10 billion company) was struggling with payment APIs. Its inability to scale the APIs securely was hampering the processing of transactions.
They chose Akana as the solution to increase payment volumes through its APIs. Now it can operate efficiently and comply with rules imposed by the Affordable Care Act.
Akana Helped This Health Insurance Provider
- Improve Security and Scalability
- Integrate with Legacy IT Environments
- Build and Deploy Systems Rapidly
Challenge: Securely Scaling the Blue Cross Payments API
In the healthcare industry, insurance companies are referred to as the “payer.” Their job is to process payment requests and make payments to healthcare providers on a timely basis.
They needed provide external access to legacy Blue Cross business payments systems. Hospitals and medical practices needed regular, high-volume access to:
- Process payment requests.
- Receive reimbursement for healthcare services.
The health insurance provider uses business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) APIs to enable this process.
A slow payment cycle is bad for a payer’s business. This health insurance provider had difficulty with their ability to provide external access to its partners and consumers. And that ultimately created a slow payment cycle.
The large healthcare provider's APIs were built on IBM WebSphere DataPower technology. As systems and requirements evolved, they found that they could not securely scale these APIs.
The Affordable Care Act had already imposed rules on our customer’s processes. This resulted in a delay in payment processing, which negatively affected their business. The need to update its payment APIs became all the more urgent.
They needed a better API strategy. They found it with Akana. In fact, they chose Akana over other solutions because of its integration with DataPower.
Solution: Akana
They needed to go beyond API basics. Today, Akana empowers the large health insurance provider to scale their payment APIs securely. All the while, they can retain the necessary interconnectivity with DataPower. Akana was easier to use and more secure to deploy than other solutions.
Akana’s API gateway enables:
- The rapid construction of microservices.
- The integration of disparate systems.
With the API gateway, the customer has the flexibility to rapidly build and deploy systems that are designed for change. Akana makes this possible by mediating incompatibilities across real-world, heterogeneous IT environments.
Benefits: Faster Payment Processing
With Akana, the health insurance provider can now scale up their payment APIs. They can handle the requests and process payments faster. This helps them ensure customer satisfaction.
Plus, the health insurance provider remains secure. The Akana API gateway protects their customer data.
Finally, the health insurance provider doesn't need to worry about regulatory compliance. Using Akana helps them comply with HIPAA and other regulations set by the Affordable Care Act.
Be Like the Health Insurance Provider
See for yourself why Akana provides the best way to manage and scale APIs in the enterprise.
Akana makes it easy to:
- Deploy APIs fast, so you can accelerate time to market.
- Secure access and apply security policies automatically.
- Create a business strategy that works — for the long term.
Sign up for a free 6-month trial to see what Akana can do for you.