Zero patient advance
Cash is settled on the spot at the hospital counter, so patients never pay upfront and then file for reimbursement; advance-payment disputes and complaint risk fall together.
DBS redesigns the whole insurance claim as a sequenced data flow and fund flow: policy data synced in real time, treatment data posted in real time, real-time adjudication against the rules the insurer presets, a cancellation and adjustment window, locked results, direct bank connectivity with T+1 clearing, and write-back of bank transaction serials for write-off — every step stays inside the system, so it is traceable, auditable and reconcilable.
Direct Billing Settlement Token
DBST — the settlement token issued by the DBS platform, carried through the whole settlement cycle
DBST
Direct settlement saves far more than workflow — it also cuts claims-adjustment risk, working-capital drag and complaint cost.
Settled on the spot at the hospital counter, with the settlement record kept inside the system.
Cash is settled on the spot at the hospital counter, so patients never pay upfront and then file for reimbursement; advance-payment disputes and complaint risk fall together.
Presetting and activating a liability rule constitutes confirmation, and a locked result constitutes approval — the records and documents inside the system are the settlement basis.
Automatic adjudication against preset rules, automatic settlement against the locked result.
Adjudication triggers the moment hospital data arrives, so excess-of-limits and duplicate payments are blocked before settlement rather than chased afterwards.
Bank transaction serials are written back on T+1 and bound to the settlement voucher; write-off completes automatically within the cycle, and reconciliation uses the adjudication result as the single basis.
Only settlement-essential fields leave the country, with a full audit trail behind every step.
Only the fields strictly required for settlement are passed to the insurer; full medical records, test values, imaging material and biometric data never leave the country.
Data receipt timestamps, rule version numbers and parameter snapshots, the calculation process and element checksums form the basis for allocating responsibility in any post-event review.
DBST stands for Direct Billing Settlement Token and is issued by the DBS settlement platform. A Token is not a paper settlement note moved into a screen — it folds the whole life of one claim, from policy inception to write-off, into a single verifiable object. Every field is logged in the system and every state change can be traced back.
Mutually exclusive and no double recovery for the same expense; excess-of-limits and duplicate payments are blocked before settlement rather than chased afterwards.
Every step stays in the system. Receipt timestamps, rule versions, parameter snapshots, the calculation record and element checksums form the basis for allocating responsibility.
Preset rule equals confirmation; a locked result equals approval. No paper documents — the Token itself is the settlement basis.
The bank reference is written back automatically and bound to the settlement voucher, and the cycle closes automatically without manual matching.
Step through the settlement timeline simulator below to watch this Token's ID, state and bound elements change step by step — open the simulator →
Pick a sample case and play the processing chain. As hospital data changes, the adjudication result is recalculated in real time; the bottom-left panel is the system audit trail, and every step can be traced back.
Under the domestic edition the insurance institution selects one of two mutually exclusive paths, by pilot batch or per claim; the cross-border edition (cross-border pilot) separately specifies the cross-border receipt and payment segment.
The liability rules written into the agreement: rule-based causes are borne by the insurance institution and system-based causes by the system operator.
| Situation | Borne by | Key points |
|---|---|---|
| Rule-based cause Erroneous preset liability rule / disease mapping / parameters, or the insurer's own misinterpretation |
Insurance institution | The portion already executed by the operator (already advanced to the hospital or already transferred) must be paid by the insurer in full, and is not reduced because the rule is corrected; the portion already computed but not yet executed is still executed on the basis of the generated result; the difference caused by the rule error is borne by the insurer. The operator cooperates in optimising the rules, but does not bear responsibility for the correctness of the insurer's own rules. |
| System-based cause Limited to defects in DBS itself: errors in data receipt, calculation or transmission |
System operator | The operator fixes the system, corrects the erroneous result and continues to improve the functionality; direct losses are borne by the operator. This does not include hospital-side data errors, the insurer's liability rules or parameter configuration errors, and equally does not include failures of third-party bank or hospital systems; the DBS system log is the basis for allocating responsibility. |
From registration to running the first claim — a clear path with actions that can be orchestrated.
Once both parties agree to cooperate, the operator opens an institutional account on the DBS platform and issues a registration invitation; the insurer completes registration within 5 working days and submits its institutional information and licences, and the relevant function permissions are enabled once verification passes.
Inside the DBS insurance institution client, the insurer uses the unified Chinese medical institution disease dictionary supplied by the operator to classify liability by disease, and presets and activates the settlement rules within the scope of liability.
A pilot list is generated inside the DBS system and confirmed by both parties, completing the first batch of treatment data interaction, real-time adjudication, mutual confirmation and settlement payment — running the full chain end to end.
Whether it is a network of domestic public hospitals at secondary level and above, or the cross-border scenario of an overseas insurer's policyholders receiving treatment in China, DBS handles it with the same sequencing logic. Get in touch with us for the full system description and the agreement text.