OTHER THAN A SHIFT from fee-for-service to managed care, the private healthcare financing system has pretty much operated the same way for decades: Employers buy health insurance for workers, providers submit claims to the insurance companies for covered services, and the insurance companies either pay or deny the claims.

Yet there are numerous flaws within this staid and often complicated system, not the least of which is nearly 50 million uninsured people who don’t fit the formula and fall through the cracks. Add to that constantly escalating healthcare costs, which have made offering health insurance unaffordable for a growing number of companies.

The role of health savings accounts as part of a consumer-driven healthcare system appears to be gaining favor. By 2012, an estimated one-third of the population will have HSAs as an alternative to high-priced traditional health insurance.

If this trend continues, it has the potential to radically change the healthcare payment structure, and a burgeoning concept called medical banking will be at the center of it. By the end of this year, medical banks are projected to have $10 billion in deposits. That is why organizers of the Medical Banking Institute, set for April 1-3 in Marietta, Ga., are touting the conference as a significant forum for discussing the conceptual and strategic issues behind medical banking’s evolution.

“The easiest way to describe medical banking is that it is an entirely new way of looking at healthcare,” said John Casillas, president of the Franklin, Tenn.-based Medical Banking Project, the primary sponsor of the event. “Instead of only handling money, banks and financial services institutions have become stakeholders for information and claims processing as well.”