For medical providers, choosing the best Healthcare Payment processing solution will have a significant impact on your bottom line. Sure, rates and fees are high on the list of important characteristics when researching vendors, but more important is the functionality that these vendors built into their solution.
 
Medprenuers! Sign up for a demo today!  to learn more about the best Healthcare Payment Processing solution contributes to building Long Term Wealth!
 
Blast from the past
 
Remember flip phones? They worked perfectly, right? They made calls, could send and receive text messages and they even stored all of your favorite contacts. These phones were easy to use and performed the tasks exactly the way we needed them to.
 
We all know precisely why and how the Smart phone disrupted the entire industry. Additional features such as music, apps, social media and instant gratification changed our relationship with our phones and fueled mass adoption of these devices.
 
I compare those flip phones to the current credit card terminals we see at the front desk of  so many practices. The terminals you so often see are designed to take credit cards, either swiped or key entered, and for the most part, they work perfectly for a traditional retail merchant.
 
But are they the right Healthcare Payment Processing solution?
 
Today’s healthcare providers are looking for specific functionality from today’s payment processing companies to solve some of their largest revenue cycle management problems, and specifically, the ever growing patient responsibility.
 
Following are key features every medical provider should be looking for when choosing the best Healthcare payment processing solution:

  • Comprehensive Point of Service device – When you collect the co-pay,you need an easy to use, efficient method for handling Point of Service transactions.
  • Secure Storage of Credit Card Data  – Every medical practice knows the patient responsibility extends beyond the co-pay where the credit card (HSA and FSA cards included) are the primary means of payment. Securely storing that card data will expedite patient payments considerably and even impact the amount collected.
  • Recurring Payment Options and Payment Plans – When patients cannot pay for care, they will either forgo the treatment, or simply not pay the bill. Offering flexible payment options, such as a mutually agreed payment plan, will provide both providers and patients with the flexibility and predictive model for covering the cost of care.
  • Online BillPay – With Online Bill pay, patients have the option to pay their bill on their own terms. Most people look at their mail, and view your paper statements, after office hours. Planning a call while the office is available, and not during lunch, is difficult for most people and ultimately results in payments being delayed or missed altogether.
  • Text to Pay –  With a 98% open rate,  communicating an outstanding bill via Text message, and offering One-touch Bill pay from the mobile device, is proving to be one of the most effective means of collecting outstanding balances from patients with the propensity to pay.
  • Patient and Practice specific data collection – For ease of reconciliation of patient payments, it must be easy for providers to map a payment back to a specific patient or service. This means custom fields to collect Invoice numbers, patient ID’s or any other practice specific data sets must also be included as part of the transaction records.
  • Single Platform – Collecting patient payments from the multiple sources outlined above need to be consolidated and easily displayed for easy reconciliation.
  • Extension to your medical billing company – If your practice uses a medical billing company, granting access to process payments on this single platform will further streamline collections, reconciliation, and most importantly, time it takes for those funds to be available for your practice.

 
Healthcare Payment Processing technology has changed drastically in the past couple years and is adapting to market demands. Is your medical practice benefiting from these advances, or do you still use the “Flip Phone” method for processing payments? For further insights to the best Healthcare Payment Processing trends, make sure you sign up for our blog, or request a demo of the CardConnect platform today.