HotDoc Payments allows you the flexibility to provide a payment option for patients who book a consult. Payments works with HotDoc Online Bookings to create a seamless patient experience.
With Payments, you can:
- Securely accept payments from the patient when they make an online booking
- Free up Receptionist time from manually processing payments over the phone
- Customise how much you wish to charge for different appointment types
Read the guide below to set yourself up for HotDoc Payments.
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For clinics using Best Practice, please see our Payments Setup Guide here. |
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In this article |
1. The Patient Journey
| Before setting up HotDoc to process payments for your consults, we recommend that you first review the payment journey from a patient point of view. See How does a patient pay for their consult? |
We understand that using an online system to process payments for an appointment may be a new experience for your clinic and patients. By reviewing the patient journey, you and your team will be able to know what to expect and confidently preempt any concerns or questions.
When HotDoc Payments is enabled for an appointment type, a patient will be prompted to choose from existing stored card details, or to add a new payment method so that we can charge the nominated cost post-appointment.
Example of the payment screen for patients
Once the patient has attended the booking, HotDoc will attempt to charge the nominated payment method once you select Collect Amount in the Dashboard.
- If HotDoc is unable to charge the nominated card, we will automatically SMS the patient requesting them to opt for another payment method. We will then attempt another charge 24 hours after the first charge.
- Once the charge is successful, the patient will receive an email confirming the charge and some links on how to claim a Medicare rebate if they are eligible. See How does a patient claim their Medicare rebate? for more information.
2. Set up your payment method
An account with either Pin Payments or Stripe is required to process payments online from your patients. |
In order to take payments for your appointment types, you will need to sign up with an account with one of our preferred payment providers.
You may already have signed up with either Pin Payments or Stripe if you've previously used our Repeats product. If so, go ahead and move to the next step.
To set up your payment account, see How to setup a Payment Provider.
Payments are set up in your HotDoc Dashboard under Payments > Payment Setup:
During sign up, you will be required to provide some information about your business, such as your bank details and ABN, so it's handy to have this information ready to fill in.
Pin Payments also requires you to provide identification in order to comply with laws regarding fraud prevention. Once your account has been authorised, you will receive an API key which you will need for your Payments setup.
3. How to activate Payments
| Payments is required to be activated for each Appointment Type you would like HotDoc to handle payment for, during which you will set the cost that you wish to charge. |
- Once you have setup and authorised your payments account, proceed to the HotDoc Dashboard > Bookings > Appointment Types. Select edit next to the appointment type you wish you add payments to:
- Scroll down to the Payment for Online Booked Appointments and check the box next to Request patient's payment method at time of booking. Here you can then enter the cost you wish to charge:
- Select the green Save button to save your change
- If your practitioners charge different amounts, you can also adjust payment amount per practitioner by heading to Bookings > Practitioner Setup > Edit and following the instructions to edit Appointment Types:
4. How to capture a Payment
After the patient has been seen, you will need to collect the payment via the HotDoc Dashboard. We recommend doing this in batches during the day, or waiting until the end of the day to collect payment.
- In your HotDoc Dashboard, navigate to Payments > Online Bookings to view a log of your online booked appointments with payments attached and select Collect next to the appointments you would like to collect for the day:
- Confirm the amount you wish to collect from the patient (you can update this to reflect a different amount in the Amount to collect section) and select Collect Amount to charge the patient:
- There may also be instances where you wish to capture a one off payment for an appointment not booked via HotDoc. To do this, please see Creating a Payment Request.
5. How to manage payments
| Payment management allows you to keep track of who has been authorised for payment, paid and refunded. See Payment Management to learn how. |
Now that Payments is activated, you can keep a track of your payments in the Payments Section of the HotDoc Dashboard. You can see an audit of the following:
- Online bookings related payments
- Payment requests sent manually
- Downloaded report of your payments
Example of Payments Section in the HotDoc Dashboard
6. Educate and train your Team
| As with anything new, education is key to ensuring a higher patient engagement rate. The more you promote the system to your team, the more comfortable they will feel with managing payments. |
Congratulations! You have now fully setup and learnt how to manage HotDoc Payments.
As your patients and team start to use this, they may naturally have questions. Most questions can be pre-empted by good education and knowledge of the product.
To educate your Team:
- Make sure they have reviewed both How does a patient pay for their consult? and Payment Management so they know how to track payments through HotDoc.
- Download our Cheat Sheet and print this out for your reception staff!
To educate your patients:
- Send out a SMS Broadcast to let them know you are accepting payments for appointments online. See How to create a Broadcast SMS for further information.
- If they are unsure of the payment process, direct them to our help page guide Paying for an Appointment.