Healthcare Payment Solutions for Merchants and Platforms

on Sep6

Written by

James Davis

Senior Technical Writer
at United Thinkers

Author of the Paylosophy blog, a veteran writer, and a stock analyst with extensive knowledge and experience in the financial services industry that allows me to cover the latest payment industry news, developments, and insights. Read more

Reviewed by

Katherine Pensatori

Reviewed by Katherine Pensatori

Product Specialist at United Thinkers

Product specialist with more than 10 years of experience in the Payment Processing Industry. I help payment facilitators and PSPs solve their various payment processing issues. Read more

In this article we will explain and illustrate the benefits of integrated healthcare payment solutions.

Healthcare industry is rapidly embracing electronic payment functionality. So, many healthcare specialists and platform providers are wondering which payment solutions would work best for them. That is why we decided to shed some light on the subject.

In essence, integration of your core product with the accounting system makes the healthcare payment solution more efficient. In this case both payment information and medical records might get right into the system. Besides that, patients need diverse ways allowing them to make payments for medical services, ensuring both convenience and privacy.

Let us now look at payment solutions for healthcare industry from patient’s, doctor’s, and platform owner’s perspectives.

Healthcare Payment Solutions: Doctor-Patient Perspective

There are different situations in which the patient needs to pay for healthcare services (both online and in office).

4 Common scenarios

Making online payments. In some cases, online payment is, actually, the preferrable form of payment. For example, the medical office might be offering some additional products/training materials or workshops for purchase online.
Paying copayment and other visit and examination-related expenses in the office.
Paying copayment online. Sometimes, copayment can only be paid online. That is after the visit, once the insurance company processes the claim and it is clear how much it will cover. The patient is, usually, able to learn the amount of such payment only several days after the appointment. So, afterwards, he or she might have to pay whatever portion of the payment is not covered by the insurance, online.
Recurring installment payments. Many patients need to split payment amounts into a series of recurring smaller installment payments. For example, orthodontists often rely on such recurring installment payments, because their services can be quite expensive.

As we can see, there is a need for accepting both one-time and recurring, both online and in-office.

Bottom line: even finance and payment solutions for a small healthcare business should incorporate support for different payment methods.

Healthcare payment solutions for platforms

For larger healthcare software platforms, it is even more important to work with flexible payment solutions (platforms) whose feature sets go beyond the capabilities of traditionally used standalone terminal solutions.

Let us list the key arguments in favor of these integrated (or embedded) payment solutions.

5 reasons why integrated healthcare payment solutions work better

By supporting different payment methods within your integrated solution, you automatically diversify your customer base. Thus, you become capable of servicing more patients with different needs, while simplifying payment experience for all of them. Both online and in the office!
Embedded healthcare payment solutions allow doctors to offer and sell additional services. Examples include video lectures, online classes, workshops etc. (see previous section). Payments for these services are, in essence, online purchases, potentially made through special apps or wallets.
Integrated solutions, usually, have native support for recurring payments and include respective logic. As we mentioned, recurring installment payments, traditionally used in orthodontist industry, are being adopted more and more often. They allow patients to cover the cost of expensive medical procedures, not covered by insurance. These payments require support for recurring payment functionality and respective logic;
Embedded payment solutions allow providers to simplify merchant onboarding process and merchant experience for medical businesses. This advantage is extremely relevant for healthcare management platforms;
Integrated terminal solutions, based on Android terminals (such as Sunmi) can be used for paperless patient records. That is, a patient can fill in certain forms using an Android-based terminal application.

Concluding remarks

It makes sense for medical businesses and platforms to work with integrated healthcare payment solutions. That is why we invite you to take a look at the respective offerings, such as

1. Zift payment-as-service (PaaS) solution and

2. UniPay Gateway-based white label gateway solution.

They offer a wide range of merchant and payment services. Their key features include: