Hospitals, dental offices, and everything in between put up with a lot of headaches. Medical professionals need to keep their focus on patient wellbeing. But how do you focus on patients when you have to set up recurring billing cycles, track down customer information, and all the other hassles that come with payment processing in healthcare?
The simple answer is using a payment processor designed with healthcare professionals in mind. But how do you choose? While there might be a lot of options out there, we recommend keeping the following in mind.
4 Things to Consider When Choosing a Healthcare Payment Processor
Compliance
Compliance is paramount to the safety and health of your patients. There might be cheaper payment processors out there, but so few meet the standards of compliance, opening your business to a multitude of headaches you shouldn’t have to deal with. Looking for processors that have HIPAA Compliance is a good start.
Security
We’ve said it so many times in the past; security is one of the most significant issues facing healthcare today. Egress, a data security firm, found that healthcare was one of the top industries likely to suffer from data breaches. The company found that healthcare accounts for nearly 18% of all data breaches in the US.
You’re combing a lot of critical data all in once place, from personal information like social security numbers, to credit card info, healthcare is just a prime target. That’s why you need a company that has quality security measures to keep hackers at bay. Having the proper PCI and NACHA Compliance ensures that your payment processor is up to date with the latest standards.
Recurring Bills
At some point, processors like Square just won’t cut it. It would help if you had the flexibility to adapt to the needs of your patients. The most common necessity for healthcare professionals is the ability to offer recurring payments. The reality is that a lot of people can’t pay their medical bills all at once. If you want to collect payments effectively, you need to offer payment plans that make it possible for lower-income households to manage and pay their bill at their own pace.
Text to Pay
Another vital thing to consider is the turn around time for healthcare payments. Between dealing with insurance companies and the patient receiving their bill, you could be looking at 1-2 months between the time of treatment and the time you get paid. Speeding up that process in any way is a big deal. Using newer methods of payment, like our text payments, can help you speed things up.
According to Salesforce, “84% of businesses use or plan to use texting in their sales and marketing efforts.”
Keeping up with the competition has become the norm in this competitive industry, and you don’t want to get left behind.
Takeaways
From security to convenience, all these factors lead to one obvious solution, an omnichannel solution for healthcare payment processing. Healthcare professionals shouldn’t have to worry about hunting down payment information and keeping up with payment compliance.
Give your staff some relief so they can get back to what really matters, the patients.