DON SELF & ASSOCIATES http://www.gower.net/donself/ccards.html

WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE CREDIT CARDS IN YOUR PRACTICE

It still amazes me that in late 1996 there are still medical practices that do not take credit cards in their practices. I have heard two major reasons given to me by physicians for not accepting credit cards and this article will address those two reasons, plus other benefits you may not have thought of:

I don't want to pay a bank 5% of MY MONEY for accepting credit cards

On the surface, this seems like a valid reason for NOT taking credit cards, but let's think about it. First off, if you are a person that would pay your bank the 5% they ask for, you are probably a car salesman's dream customer, as that means you probably pay LIST PRICE for a car when you go buy a new car. Just because the banker may request 5% doesn't mean that is the rate you have to pay. Most state Medical Associations have arrangements with banks that only charge you between 2.8% to 3.5%.

Second, have you looked at how much money you are losing by not accepting credit cards? No, I am not suggesting that patients get on the phone and call around to medical practices and ask who accepts credit cards and choose the practice for that reason. I am suggesting though, that the moment the patient walks out of your office, without paying you, the chances of you collecting 100% of your money just dropped faster than Clinton's approval rating after one of his hotel flings. The chances of you collecting your money just dropped more than 8%. In other words, instead of your money sitting in your bank account drawing you interest, it is sitting in your accounts receivable costing you money. At this point, you may be scratching your head and asking, "how does my accounts receivable cost me money?". Have you considered what your costs are in sending out statements every month? If you respond that it costs you about 40 cents for an envelope, postage and the paper, you are not looking at it realistically. A major study, done back in the late 80's concluded that your cost is approximately $5.50 to $7.00 for every statement you send. While I don't believe it is that high, I do believe it is around $3.00 per statement, when you consider the cost of your accounts receivable program, the computer necessary to run it, the cost of the electricity, the envelope, the postage, the paper, the associated office expenses and most of all........ YOUR EMPLOYEE'S TIME. Now, you see why the 40 cents a statement isn't factoring in all of the associated costs.

MY PATIENTS DO NOT HAVE CREDIT CARDS

This is my favorite. If you want to have fun sometime, no matter what neighborhood your practice is in, or how economically depressed your patients are, go spend a few minutes in any of the following places:
Video Rental Store Liquor Store Theater Grocery Store
You may be very surprised to see how many of your patients are pulling out Mastercard, Visa, Discover and yes, even American Express cards in these stores and using them. They may not hesitate to use them for the latest Stallone movie, bottle of Scotch, Nintendo game or groceries.

OTHER BENEFITS OF TAKING CREDIT CARDS

While it is true that you can use them at the "point of service" to collect, they may also be used when you have that "hot" check sitting in the front office, that has been called on twice. You just go ahead and process the amount of the check, plus whatever fee you charge for insufficient checks on the patient's credit card. Of course, if you are not asking for the patient's credit card(s) information on your NEW PATIENT CREDIT FORM, you may not have that number handy. HINT HINT HINT You may wonder, if this is legal. Doesn't the patient have the right to challenge any charges on their card when they receive their statement? That is the recourse of the patient, but to date, we haven't heard from one client that the patient has chosen to take this action. It sure beats playing the game with the District Attorney on collecting and many of them now charge a processing fee to collect it..... FROM YOU!

The second and most beneficial benefit of accepting credit cards and asking for it on the NEW PATIENT CREDIT FORM is...... WAIT - I'm giving away too much again. Nope - can't do it. If I give it all away, you won't have a reason to utilize my services, so I gotta stop here. Wow, and I didn't even cover other collection techniques that work or some of the ways that patients are negating their full balances through mistakes made by the office staff. By now, you may be wondering how you can contact us to come do a COLLECTION WORKSHOP for you and your staff, or your association or hospital, and what we charge. Our fee is really simple. We charge $1250 plus travel expenses to teach an 8 hour workshop, unless we are promoting it ourselves and we have to do the mailouts, book the seminar room, provide the lunch, etc... In that case, we charge $175 a person, with a 15 person minimum. If this sounds like something you may be interested in, drop us an email or give us a call. We perform an average of 48 practice analysis and between 30 to 40 workshops a year, and we would be more than happy to schedule one for you. Hopefully, by now, you realize that our recommendations will make you much more than our fee is.