This feature is designed to increase your front desk efficiency by allowing receptionists to collect payments for all your appointments in the HotDoc Sidebar and have greater visibility over your payment activity. Please read below to view the journey, as well as FAQs about how this works.

What do the different statuses in the Sidebar mean

Payments can be accessed by going into the Sidebar and clicking 'Payments to action', Here you will find a list of patients appointments to action. Below is what each of the status' mean:

To action - Payment activity that requires your attention Ready to collect - Appointments that are ready for collection. The patient has been seen or the appointment time has ended and they have a card stored or pre-authorised for payment. Payments failed - Collection of payment has failed. We will send a follow up SMS to request payment immediately. Needs receipt (Best Practice customers) When payment is successful, but the invoice is still outstanding and needs to be receipted.
Patients with a stored card Card stored - Patient has a stored a card for their appointment. Pre-authorised - Patient has pre-authorised the estimated cost of their appointment at the time of booking.
Payments completed today Paid - Payment has been successfully collected from the patient. Cancelled - The payment request has been cancelled.
Activity list order The order of the "To action" list is based on latest payment activity, patients seen most recently will appear at the top, allowing you to collect quickly and efficiently.   Once a patient's appointment time has finished or their appointment status is 'In Billing' their payment will be ready to collect.

How do I know if a payment has failed? 

1. If the payment fails the processing screen will result in payment declined instead of payment successfully. As soon as the patient's card fails/declines, an SMS will be sent to the mobile number in the patient file requesting them to enter valid card card details.
   
2. You will then see a Payment failed in the Sidebar, and you can view more details about this by clicking the 'Details' button which will redirect you to the Dashboard.
   
   

How do I cancel a payment in the Sidebar? 

You may need to cancel a payment from the sidebar if you know that the patient has successfully paid via a different method (eftpos, cash or over the phone) and therefore no longer need to collect payment via HotDoc.

1. Only ready to collect and failed payments can be cancelled.
2. Click cancel > Yes, cancel payment 

3. The payment will then appear as cancelled on the Payment completed today list.

How to filter payments by status 

1. Click on the drop down menu at the top of the list and select the status you wish to filter by

2. To remove the filter, go back to the drop down menu and select “All”. 

Receipting payments (Best Practice customers) 

The majority of the time you can receipt an invoice right away once you see the payment is successful. There are rare cases where the payment transaction can take longer than expected. In that situation, you can close the processing window to complete other tasks. This “Needs receipt” status will notify you that a payment was successful but the invoice is waiting to be receipted. 

1. These payments will appear with the needs receipt status in your sidebar

2. To remove these from your to action list receipt the payment in Best Practice

3. HotDoc will then sync that change and mark the payment as paid

FAQs

What is the order of my action list? 

The order of the action list was designed so that you can quickly collect a payment for a patient who has just finished their appointment. The list is sorted so that the most recent payment activity appears at the top of the list, allowing you to take action quickly and efficiently.

Why would I cancel a payment?

You might need to cancel a payment if you no longer need to collect payment through HotDoc. This could be because the patient has paid through an alternative method: eftpos, cash, over the phone, etc. 

If someone collects funds for an appointment using the HotDoc dashboard, will that update in the sidebar to prevent double payment from the patients? 

Yes, the payment status from an action in the dashboard will update in the sidebar and vice versa. 

Do I need to refresh the sidebar to ensure that the information is up-to-date?

The action item list will automatically refresh when payments become 'Ready to collect' or when there is new payment status to update. 

What is the patient journey when an appointment is using payments? 

To learn more about the patient journey for payments, read this HotDoc support article: Payments - The Patient Journey

What should I do if a Payment fails? 

If a payment fails, you will see this in your Sidebar. As soon as the patient's card fails/declines, an SMS will be sent to the mobile number in the patient file asking them to process payment. We will also insert a note into the patient's appointment within your practice software indicating that the payment has failed and that we have notified the patient. You will also see this in your HotDoc Dashboard. If the patient still does not provide a valid payment method, you can cancel the request in your HotDoc Dashboard and arrange payment with the patient via another method.

For more information, check out this support article, How to manage failed payments for Appointmentsto assist you with what to do when a payment has failed.

How do I process a Medicare claim for payments made through HotDoc? 

To learn about how to process a Medicare claim, read this helpful Support article that will guide you through the process, How should we process a patients Medicare Rebate for appointments paid for via HotDoc?