Part 2.
In our first installment of the series, issued in our last quarterly newsletter, we took a look at how to take healthcare to the next level by accepting online payments.
This next installment we will take a look at how online payments help streamline billing processes, enhance patient convenience and save staff time.
Installment billing is easier with online payments
When consumers are hit with unexpected medical bills that are out of reach for them to pay all at once, payment plans are a good solution. But traditional payment plans are also a real hassle for staff. Between mailing out invoices, accepting payments via phone, depositing checks and keeping accounts updated, installment billing for payment plans takes a lot of time and effort.
Enhance patient convenience, save staff time
Online payments eliminate the hassles posed by traditional payment plans by facilitating a regular, recurring remittance until the balance is paid off. It allows you to accept payments regardless of your office hours and reduces the burden on your staff to accept payments over the phone, process checks, and manually update account balances.
Best practices
It’s important to follow best practices for both one-time and recurring online payments. Here are some tips:
- Make the terms, conditions, and fees involved, as well as contact information, obvious and easy to find
- Use authorization tools such as address verification and card security codes to help ensure cardholder identity
- Use soft billing descriptors so your patients can easily identify the charges on their card statements
- Use an account updating solution to automatically update card information due to card expiration, reissuance, or other changes that can prevent a payment from going through
Coming up: Removing friction, staying secure
In the final installment of this series, we’ll take a look at the top three reasons why you should accept online payments.
