William C. Short

Patents

William C. Short's two issued healthcare-payment patents, US 12,682,329 and US 12,770,120: their continuation family, claims, operation, and significance for many-to-many payment orchestration.

William C. Short is the named inventor of two issued U.S. patents covering technology for organizing, invoicing, collecting, and distributing healthcare payments among multiple payors and multiple payees. Accresa Health LLC is the assignee of both. US 12,682,329 B2 issued on 14 July 2026; US 12,770,120 B2 issued on 20 October 2026. Both descend from the same patent family, which begins with a U.S. application filed in June 2018.

Issued patent: US 12,682,329 B2

What the patent covers

Although the title uses network-routing terminology, the patent is directed to healthcare-payment administration. Its abstract describes a computer system that:

  1. receives healthcare-service and invoice data from multiple payees, such as physicians, clinics, or other providers;
  2. groups the participants into a configurable instance governed by one or more healthcare plans;
  3. determines which payor or combination of payors is responsible for each charge;
  4. creates and transmits the appropriate invoices;
  5. receives funds from the responsible payors; and
  6. allocates and distributes those funds to the correct payees.

In practical terms, the system can accept money and information from multiple funding sources, apply eligibility and plan rules, and route the resulting payments to multiple healthcare providers. This is the “many-to-many” structure used in Accresa's public description of the technology.

The three principal claim groups

The issued patent contains 20 claims organized around three independent claims and their dependent claims:

  • Claim 1 — settling bundled healthcare invoices: a processor creates a group of payors and payees, receives bundled invoices, identifies financial responsibility under applicable healthcare plans, divides the invoice data, collects funds, and distributes them to payees.
  • Claim 8 — generating a payor's consolidated invoice: the system bundles healthcare-invoice data while allowing at least two payors to share responsibility for a charge.
  • Claim 14 — networked payment system: a server coordinates payor terminals, payee terminals, and a database to perform the invoicing, collection, and distribution process.

The dependent claims add narrower features, including grouping funds owed to a payee, waiting until all required funds have arrived before distribution, handling multiple payors for one charge, and paying multiple payees that contributed to a medical service.

Issued patent: US 12,770,120 B2

  • Title: Systems and methods for multi-layer adaptive packet routing
  • Patent number: US 12,770,120 B2
  • Granted: 20 October 2026
  • Filed: 7 September 2021 (U.S. application 17/468,351)
  • Prior publication: US 2021/0406848 A1, 30 December 2021
  • Inventor: William C. Short, Dallas, Texas
  • Assignee: Accresa Health LLC, Carrollton, Texas
  • Patent term adjustment: 449 days under 35 U.S.C. 154(b)
  • Claims and drawings: 20 claims, 19 drawing sheets
  • Patent record: US 12,770,120 B2, USPTO full-text PDF

What the patent covers

US 12,770,120 claims the same multi-layer adaptive routing (MLAR) architecture from the side of membership, enrollment, and plan administration. Its abstract describes an MLAR computing device that:

  1. stores a custom group instance on a database, the instance including a network of service providers and a consultant comprised of multiple user groups;
  2. submits a query to the database based on a data request from a user;
  3. creates data packets based on the database's response; and
  4. divides, routes, and transmits those data packets among users within the custom group instance.

In the specification, a custom group instance can represent an employer's group of employees with access to a defined network of physicians, clinics, and affiliate networks. Each group is governed by its own parameters, such as provider offerings, plans or services, consumer prices and fees, and third-party payee information. Enrollment events, plan changes, and payment requests are applied to that structure, and the resulting information and payments are routed to the employers, members, and providers affected by the change.

The three principal claim groups

The issued patent contains 20 claims organized around three independent claims and their dependent claims. Each independent claim begins with a stored custom group instance in which user groups are defined by group parameters and may access healthcare or other service providers according to those parameters:

  • Claim 1 — enrolling a new patient: an MLAR computing device receives a request to add a new patient to one or more user groups, queries the database to add the patient, receives an acknowledgment, determines which users and healthcare providers within the instance should receive the information, and creates and transmits data packets and routing information to them.
  • Claim 8 — routing payments to providers: a computer-implemented method receives a request to pay one or more healthcare service providers, queries the database to determine payment information, determines the providers to route payments to, and transmits data packets that include the payments and routing information.
  • Claim 15 — modifying group parameters: instructions on a non-transitory computer-readable medium receive a request to modify one or more group parameters, enact the modification in the database, and route and transmit the resulting information to affected users within the instance.

The dependent claims add narrower features, including sending the request in response to an event, triggering that event through a data extraction process such as one that extracts data from an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) 834 file, triggering it through a modification to the custom group instance, dividing and routing data packets according to a customized plan, and maintaining user records, provider records, and plan-based affiliations between users and providers.

Why the patents are significant

They address fragmented healthcare-payment relationships

Traditional payment workflows are often built around a single payor paying a single provider for an individual transaction. Employer-sponsored and subscription-based care can involve an employer, employee, health plan, administrator, broker, physician, clinic, hospital system, and other parties in the same arrangement. The patented systems are designed to coordinate those relationships within one rules-based payment layer.

They can reduce repetitive billing and reconciliation

The claims of US 12,682,329 expressly describe bundling data packets addressed to common payors and reducing the number of network transmissions. Operationally, consolidated invoicing and payment can reduce the need for providers to issue and reconcile separate transactions for every employer, member, or funding source. Employers and plan administrators can likewise receive invoices organized according to their plan obligations.

They support newer care-delivery models

The payment structure can support direct primary care, direct-to-employer care, subscription medical services, centers of excellence, and other arrangements in which recurring funds must be divided accurately across several participants. The patents do not create those care models; they protect particular computer-implemented approaches to administering their complex financial relationships.

They connect eligibility rules to the movement of money

The system does more than transmit a payment. It determines responsibility using a custom participant group and healthcare-plan parameters, then uses those determinations to generate invoices and distribute funds. That connection among enrollment or eligibility data, plan rules, invoicing, and settlement is central to the patents' practical value.

The second patent covers the enrollment and plan-change side

US 12,682,329 centers on invoicing, collection, and settlement. US 12,770,120 claims the events that change who is covered and who must be paid: adding a new patient to a group, modifying a group's parameters, and requesting payment to providers. Its dependent claims tie those events to enrollment data extracted from EDI 834 files, the standard electronic format for benefit enrollment and maintenance. Together, the two patents cover both the membership changes inside a custom group and the payment flows that follow from them.

They establish protected Accresa intellectual-property assets

Each issued patent gives Accresa a defined U.S. intellectual-property right whose scope is determined by its allowed claims. Both record Short as the inventor and Accresa Health LLC as the owner. The grants can support product differentiation, licensing, partnerships, and enforcement against implementations that fall within the claims. Whether any particular third-party product infringes is a claim-by-claim legal question; the patents do not confer ownership over every form of healthcare payment, enrollment, or many-to-many transaction.

Patent-family chronology

Both issued patents result from a continuation chain extending to 2018:

  • 26 June 2018: U.S. application 16/018,524 filed.
  • 21 June 2019: U.S. application 16/449,111 filed as a continuation.
  • 7 September 2021: U.S. application 17/468,351 filed as a continuation-in-part of 16/449,111.
  • 30 December 2021: application 17/468,351 published as US 2021/0406848 A1.
  • 15 August 2024: the application leading to US 12,682,329 was filed as a continuation-in-part.
  • 6 February 2025: published as US 2025/0045716 A1.
  • 14 July 2026: issued as US 12,682,329 B2.
  • 20 October 2026: application 17/468,351 issued as US 12,770,120 B2.

Applications 16/018,524 and 16/449,111 are recorded as abandoned. The long continuation history shows the development and prosecution of the invention over several applications. The enforceable grants discussed here are US 12,682,329 B2 and US 12,770,120 B2; the A1 publications document the applications and technical disclosures that preceded them.

Relationship to Accresa

Accresa describes itself as a platform connecting payment, billing, provider-network management, and member enrollment for subscription care. US 12,682,329 provides an intellectual-property foundation for the payment-orchestration component: collecting funds from multiple sources, applying the appropriate rules, and delivering consolidated payments and reporting to multiple providers. US 12,770,120 covers the group-management, enrollment, and plan-change events that determine where those payments go.

VentureBeat's article reports Accresa's characterization of US 12,682,329 and quotes Short as CEO. Promotional descriptions such as “groundbreaking” and assertions about being the “only” patented platform are company claims. The patent numbers, inventor, assignee, filing history, abstracts, and allowed claims are matters of public patent record.