Payment Processing: Your Secret Key to Patient Satisfaction

As much as everyone enjoys being healthier, no one enjoys paying medical bills. That’s why having the right payment processing system for your practice, and making the payment process hassle-free, can go a long way towards maintaining patient satisfaction.

In the most basic sense, a payment processor is responsible for transmitting payment information between your patient’s bank and yours. As a financially focused part of your practice, however, they can do plenty more. 

Nothing can ruin a good clinic experience quite like following it up with a bad experience at the payment counter. That is where a payment processor can step in. Ensuring the payment process is as smooth as possible obviously means happier patients, but the benefits of a full-featured payment processing system go much deeper. 

Especially now, when eliminating every barrier between patients and care is so essential, proper payment processing might be the key your practice is missing.

Convenience Is the New Gold Standard

Changes in payment practices have happened fast. It was only 2013 when Forbes wrote, “The credit card is one of the most divisive products among all the financial tools available.” Then today, more of us than ever are buying items with a single click on Amazon. 

The desire for rapid, hassle-free payments is part of modern culture. Being in a physician’s office doesn’t change that. While it’s unfair for patients to expect the same ease-of-use from their local physician as they do from one of the largest, wealthiest companies in the world, the fact remains — modern patients value convenience. 

With that in mind, having a payment processing partner that enables fast card transactions, online payments, saved card data, and even contactless payments, makes all the difference. That flexibility and range of choice allow practices to satisfy a greater range of patients. 

On its own, being able to pay online will never make up for a subpar visit. Keeping your patients happy is a substantial upside, though, and the ripple effects of effective payment processing appear throughout your practice. 

Take the Extra Burden Off Your Staff

A good payment processor can help keep your patients happy. A great one can help improve the quality of your patient experience overall. 

Your staff can spend more time tending to patients and less time worrying about bills. Automated processes such as online and recurring payments, not to mention taking payment at the time of service, means freeing up staff time across the board. When you can request and count on timely payments, it means fewer collections calls and less stress.

Likewise, while your practice gets to offers more freedom, the payment processor offers a higher layer of security for your transactions. A partner that contributes to your compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) is an even more significant benefit. 

A good payment processor stores, updates, and maintains patient card information, so your practice doesn’t have to. 

• Easy online payments
• Stored card data to enable recurring payments
• Fewer declined payments
• Less stress for your practice

There’s certainly no shortage of payment processors. That said, taking the time to find the right one for your practice can change the way you approach patient payments. 

Meditab’s own IMS system includes integration with the payment processing platform GlobalPayments Integrated. To learn more about what that means for IMS users, click below.