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Recent events have put a spotlight on a new element of payments security—terminals. For those readers who may not have been following the news, federal law enforcement (FBI) recently raided the Florida offices of PAX Technology, a leading, Chinese-based payment terminal provider. The raid was first reported by Krebs on Security. Based on the information we currently have, both the FBI and MI5 began investigating the firm after a major US payment processor started asking the vendor questions about network packets originating from PAX’s point-of-sale terminals. The vendor, it would appear, did not provide satisfactory answers which only increased suspicion and led the processor to report the situation to authorities.

In a recent blog article, we examined how your payments solution could be costing your practice more than you realize. In one section of that article, we touched briefly on the costs associated with point of sale (POS) hardware. And cost certainly remains an important factor. These terminals are not cheap, after all, and are commonly priced anywhere from $150 to $1000 dollars. However, when it comes to payment terminals, there is more at stake than simply just the up-front costs of purchasing the hardware.

While obviously providing exceptional patient care is an important goal for your practice, you are also trying to run a successful business. To accomplish this, your practice needs to be able to do what all successful businesses do—MAKE MONEY. These days, the ability to efficiently bring in revenue means having a digital payments solution. Unfortunately, when it comes to certain payment processing solutions, many practices are not getting much when you consider what they are paying.

Poor management of a practice’s collections can have a number of negative effects, including reduced or delayed revenue as well as owed balances spending too much time in Accounts Receivable. By implementing some simple training methods and best practices, however, your practice can improve collections management.

Fraud is one of those topics that no one really enjoys talking about. It can be uncomfortable to think that someone in your practice, even someone you are close to and believe you have a strong relationship with, would steal from you. But it happens. And you need to be aware of it because fraud and theft are far more common in healthcare practices than you might expect.

Slow lead response times could be resulting in lost patients, and as a result, lost opportunities for future revenue. In fact, one study found that the odds of even being able to contact a potential lead decrease by over ten times in the first hour. In this blog, we will take a look at the importance of prompt lead response times and illustrate how failure to maintain them could be costing your practice new patients (and the future sales revenue that comes with them).

Without a doubt, the pandemic shined a big spotlight on the need for more online/digital solutions—not just for use in healthcare, but in nearly all forms of business. This included, of course, the need for better digital payment solutions. These digital payment solutions have become far more than just a convenience (though they are that, as well). In fact, they are quickly becoming the current and future standard for all financial transactions in every facet of commerce.

It is safe to say that 2020 was a difficult year for a lot of people, financially and otherwise. When it comes to increased financial responsibility for healthcare, it was an especially difficult year for most patients. According to new research, the average consumer spent considerably more money on healthcare than they did only a few short years ago. This trend of increased financial burden on patients is likely going to continue in 2021 and will be further exacerbated by higher healthcare prices.