Apple Pay, the iPhone maker's mobile payment technology, has added another supporting payment network in the form of
InstaMed. The company has announced that it will implement support for Apple Pay at the medical facilities it supports, including hospitals, doctor's offices and other medical businesses. InstaMed will support both iPhone 6/iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch-based payments, along with in-app payments on any Touch ID-capable iOS device.
Among the uses cited by the company for Apple Pay were co-pay payments at offices or hospitals, as well as paying routine health insurance premiums in-app through an insurer's own mobile app. The company is also involved in supporting initiatives for HealthKit and ResearchKit, which allows patients and volunteers to opt-in to sharing certain kinds of health data with medical professionals under the guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Apple Pay has been quickly and widely accepted by merchants, banks, and other institutions that offer retail point-of-sale (POS) terminals that can accept mobile payments through near-field communications (NFC), which also offers compatibility with other systems including Google Wallet. Apple's system, which emphasizes both security and privacy of customer data, has found the most favor thus far, though it is currently limited to just the United States. Many merchants this year will likely upgrade older POS terminals to support NFC, since they must upgrade to support upgraded EVM (chip-and-PIN) debit and credit cards by October of this year.
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