Credit Card Updates
Answered
There are two deficiencies with the current credit card update process within Simple Practice which severely deteriorate the experience for practice owners and patients. They are both easy fixes. The reason I know this is that I am a software engineer. A junior dev could update these to resolve MASSIVE billing errors that currently occur as a result of these two issues:
BUG 1, Part A: Existing Patient Updates their Credit Card in their Portal
Current Process:
* Existing patient enters their new card
* Patient cannot select this new card as their default card
* Auto Pay continues to process payment on the old card
* Patient calls practice and is upset
Solution:
* Patient can choose to make this new card their 'default' card
* Auto pay will process this new card going forward
* Patient is happy
BUG 1, Part B: Existing Patient Updates their Credit Card in their Portal
Current Process
* Practice manager goes into patient's account under billing. Multiple credit cards appear. Practice manager does not know which card to change to the default card because there are no dates included for when the card was added by the patient so the practice manager can't distinguish the cards based on most recently updated.
Solution:
* Within the patient's account, add a date stamp to the card so that the practice manager can distinguish between the cards based on which is most recently updated by the patient.
Bug 2: Auto Pay Feature - No Default Option for a Practice that Sets all Patients on Auto Pay
Current Process:
* New patient joins practice.
* Patient attends visit(s)
* Patient is not billed for visits because their account has to be manually updated to Auto Pay by the practice manager.
* Patient's balance accrues to a high amount.
* Patient is finally billed by practice who notices the high amount in a weekly or bi-weekly Accounts receivable process.
* Patient is upset because they expected their card to be processed following each visit, rather than in a lump sum. Practice appears as an amateur.
Solution:
* For practices, such as our's, that require all patients to be on auto pay, either (a) provide the option for us to have all NEW patients on auto pay by default. We can turn that off in special cases or (b) allow us to print out a weekly report of NEW patients so that we can manually update all new patients to auto pay.
I've requested these fixes for the last 12 months via chats with customer service reps and have been ignored. We'll require both bugs to be fixed prior to leaving Simple Practice either for a competitor or maybe to start our own competitor. Its that frustrating.
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Hi Megan and Lori - Thank you for your suggestions, we're always looking for new ideas to enhance our platform.
Although we haven't built out the functionality for clients to designate a "Default Credit Card" on their end, we've recently enabled clinicians to do this on behalf of their clients. To change which card is designated as the default payment method, go to your clients Billing and Insurance settings, Edit Payment and use the toggle to make the card the Default card.
Here's a screenshot:
Also, you can enable Autopay for all your clients at once by going to your Settings > Billing & Services, scroll down to the Autopay section, uncheck the box, then recheck it. This will enable Autopay for all clients with credit cards on file; however, it won't automatically enable it for new clients. The reason why we don't allow you to enable Autopay for all new clients that join is because it may not be something all clients agree to immediately.
Our Product Team often considers customers' ideas that are posted on our Ideas and Suggestions Board, so I'd highly recommend adding this feedback there. Head over to the board by clicking here: http://simplepractice.uservoice.com/
I'm going to close this post for comments, but I look forward to sharing this with our Product Team and hope you'll also keep the conversation going on our Ideas and Suggestions Board!
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