PROFITTHEORY

Dental payments

Payments and your practice-management software: an integration checklist

A good integration posts each payment to the right patient ledger automatically, handles refunds and partial payments correctly and gives you a report that ties back to the processor batch. Confirm each item with your specific software version before you rely on it.

Estimates only. Results vary. No guarantee of approval, rates or savings.

Questions to ask any payment vendor

  • Does it post payments to the patient ledger automatically — and both ways?
  • Which practice-management versions and deployments (cloud, server) are supported?
  • How are refunds, voids and partial payments posted?
  • Can staff permissions limit who issues refunds?
  • Is there a daily report that matches the batch?
  • What happens when posting fails — is there an exceptions queue?

Test before you switch

Ask for a test or reference practice using the same software. Run a week of transactions and reconcile them before going live.

Run the numbers

Blue = you enterGreen = calculatedGray = assumptionAmber/red = check this
$
$

All fees on the statement.

$
$
$
hrs
$

All-in collections cost / month

$8,350.00

Card effective rate

2.60%

Broader cost ÷ card volume

3.34%

Software

$850.00

Staff time

$1,000.00

About $100,200 a year to get paid.

The card effective rate and the broader ratio are different measures — the broader one includes non-card work, so don't compare it to a processor's quoted rate. Uses only your numbers; no vendor pricing assumed.

Estimates only. Results vary. No guarantee of approval, rates or savings.

Estimates only. Results vary. No guarantee of approval, rates or savings.

Talk with a payments specialist

Common questions

Is an integration worth paying for?

Weigh its cost against staff time spent posting and fixing errors. The payment stack calculator can help.