Best Practice

HotDoc Payments allows you to accept online payments for appointments—whether booked through HotDoc or directly at your practice. Funds can be automatically collected and invoices automatically receipted in Best Practice, reducing admin time for your team and streamlining your process. You can also send manual requests for immediate charge for late cancellations, no-shows or debt collection.

With HotDoc Payments, you can:

• Reduce reception's time spent manually processing payments over the phone or at the front desk. 
• Customise the amounts for different appointment types, specify which doctors receive online payments, and choose who receives the payouts (practice or individual doctors)
  
• Prevent debt by pre-authorising payments for specific appointment types by holding funds until the appointment is complete 
• Exempt specific patients from adding a payment method (eg. Bulk Billed patients)
• Charge the final amount after you have added MBS item numbers or if the appointment type changes mid consult, and automate the collection and receipting process
• Use our reporting tools to simplify your reconciliation process and end of day banking

Please read the article below to get started!

The Patient Journey 

The patient journey will be different depending on how you have configured HotDoc Payments. You can set up and collect payment for the following:

• Online booked appointments
• Practice booked appointments
• Upcoming appointments without existing payment setup
• Immediate payment requests
  
  

To provide an overview of the patient journey: 

1. Patients will be prompted to add a payment method when booking online, or may receive an email, push notification or SMS to add a payment method for appointments booked directly with your practice.
   
   
2. Patients will be shown an estimated cost and enter their card details, which are never visible to HotDoc or your practice. We partner with Stripe, Pin Payments, and Spreedly—Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) Level 1 certified providers—to securely verify, store, tokenise, and process patient payments.
   
   
3. If you've enabled pre-authorisations, a hold is placed on the patients card for 7 days from time of booking.
   
   

4. After the appointment, we'll sync the final amount on the patient's invoice and charge the patient's card automatically or when you click 'collect,' depending on your settings.
   
   

5. If the charge fails, the patient will receive an SMS prompting them to update their payment method. We'll retry this 24 hours later.
   
   
6. Once successful, the patient receives a payment confirmation email. If eligible for a Medicare rebate, you can submit the claim for them, or they can do so via their Medicare account. See: How should we process a patients Medicare Rebate for appointments paid for via HotDoc? for more information.

1. Get started: Set up your payment provider

Step 1 is to set up and link your payment provider by clicking "Get Started". This will direct you to Payment Setup > Account Settings > Setup Payment Provider where you can choose either Stripe or Pin Payments, and follow the prompts.

If you've already linked a payment provider for Quick Consults, you can continue to step 2.

Please note: You must complete this step before you can move through the checklist.

Payments > Payment Setup > Account Settings > Setup Payment Provider	Setup Stripe or Pin Payments

Please note:

• Upon sign up, you'll be required to provide some information about your business such as your bank details and ABN - it's handy to have this information ready to fill in.
  
  
• Stripe requires you to enter a Statement Descriptor for patients to see in their bank statement. We highly recommend entering the name of your practice in the descriptor to avoid patients disputing payments.  
  
  
• 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.

2. Customise your payment account settings 

In the 'Customise your payment account settings' step, you can:

• Understand the Provider Processing Fee
• Add patient and bulk billing exemptions
• Set up Best Practice automation settings.

Click the "Go to Account Settings" button to get started, and it will direct you to the Payments > Payment Setup > Account Settings section.

2a - Understanding the provider processing fee

The first setting to understand is the Provider Processing fee within the Account Settings.

This setting is on by default, meaning the fee will be passed on to patients. You need this setting enabled to access new features and it helps streamline your reporting and ensures your payments match up with receipts and bank payouts.

This fee is 1.75% + 30c per transaction and will be added to the price you charge patients for appointments or payment requests.

Example of a consultation costing $50.00
Example: Payment break down if Patient pays processing fee is enabled.

2b - Add patient exemptions & bulk billing exemptions

Scroll down to the Bulk Billing Payment Exemptions setting, where you can use our patient and bulk billing exemption features to remove the payment method requirement for eligible patients when they book online or directly through your practice reception team.

• You can exempt individual patients in the Patients section of your Dashboard, for those who are bulk billed, have a valid concession card, are elderly or are long-standing regular patients:
  
  

• You can add bulk billing criteria to your practice profile, so that patients eligible for Bulk Billing based upon age or concession card are exempt from adding a payment method.
  
  

2c. Set up Best Practice Payment Automation settings (automatically collect and receipt invoices) 

Finally, under Payments > Payment Setup > Account Settings > Bulk Billing Best Practice Automations, there are two different automation settings that you can enable to streamline your workflow and reduce admin time processing payments and invoices:

• Automatically collect payment in HotDoc

• Automatically receipt an invoice in Best Practice, that has been successfully paid in HotDoc
  

You can also add settings that allow you to delay the receipt of any payment made outside of your business hours, so that you can process Medicare claims manually in Best Practice on the same day that the patient's invoice is receipted. 

 3. Set up your appointment types 

Now that your account settings are configured, you can select the appointment types you'd like to accept payments for by clicking "Go to Appointment Setup" and you will be directed to the Payment Setup > Appointment Setup section.

Here you can choose:

• Whether you'd like to enable payments for both online and practice-booked appointments
• The appointment types which should have a payment option - We recommend always starting with your Telehealth or high value appointments
• The estimated cost of the appointment
• The card setting, whether you'd like to pre-authorise funds on the patient's card at the time of booking, or to store the patient's card so you can collect the funds afterwards
• Any cancellation settings if they don't add a payment method for practice booked appointments, providing a sense of urgency for them to secure their appointment.

4. Set up your practitioners

The last step before you going live with Payments is to set up your practitioners. Click "Go to Practitioner Setup" and you will be directed to the Payment Setup > Practitioner Setup section.

Here you can configure which practitioners accept payments by toggling on/off and set up payment accounts for direct payouts into their own bank accounts, rather than a central practice bank account. 

Note: Practitioners will only receive payments for appointment types they're enabled for, or if you have sent a manual payment request to one of their patients where the practitioner is on the invoice. 

5. Go Live

Once you've made your way through the checklist and you have at least one appointment type and practitioner set up to receive payments, you are ready to go live with HotDoc Payments!

To activate payments and start collecting payment for your appointment types, go to the Payments > Get Started checklist and select the "Go Live" button. 

6. View your payments and learn how to collect

Now that you're live with payments, it's important that you learn how to view appointments with a payment method and learn how to collect and charge the patient's card. You can collect a patients payment via the HotDoc Sidebar, or you can use our Best Practice Automation settings. 

Collection via HotDoc Sidebar: You can collect payments using the HotDoc sidebar, allowing staff to confirm invoice details, adjust amounts if need, and ensure accurate billing before charging the patient, receipting the payment and sending the Medicare claim in Best Practice.

• Have full visibility and control on all payments for the day 
• Collect funds from the patients stored card or pre authorised amount
• Receipt payment immediately via "Pay Now" and send patients Medicare claim. 

Collection with Best Practice Automations: If automations are enabled, HotDoc automatically collects and receipts payment 10 minutes after the invoice has been finalised and staff click "Store" in Best Practice. 

• Sync and charge the patient the final amount on the invoice
• Collect funds from the patient's card either automatically if you're using the automations features, or show a 'Collect' button in the Dashboard for you to collect manually.
• If the patient is eligible for a Medicare rebate, you will need to go back into their invoice to send this off. 

In the Payments > Get Started checklist, click the "View Payments" button to go to the Payments > Booking Activity section to view appointments with a payment method. Here you can:

• View a list of payments ready for collection, and any failed payments. 
• Manually cancel a payment
• If you have the 'automatic receipting' features turned on, The “Send Patient Claim” tab show a list of patients that have an invoice receipted today with Medicare items for you to send the claim. 

• The "Needs Receipt" tab will show a list of patients where payment has been collected via HotDoc, but the invoice is still outstanding in Best Practice.

7. Learn how to use the reporting tools and how to reconcile

The final step in the checklist is to view our reporting tools, click the "Go to Reporting" button to go to the Payments > Reporting section.

Our Payments 'Reporting' can assist you in reconciling your payments with your receipts and reports in your Practice Management Software, as well as the payouts to your bank. 

It consists of a Payment Activity section (subtotal figures, all completed and refunded payments) as well as Payouts section (funds processed from payment provider to your bank account), and you will see all payments that you use HotDoc for.

8. Sending manual payment requests

In addition to automatic payments, you can also send manual payment requests to patients when needed. These are useful for requesting payments for immediate charge (eg. no-show fees, debt collection) or requesting card details in advance for upcoming appointments that require payment. HotDoc offers two types of manual requests:

1. Manual payment requests for immediate charge
   • To collect payment for adhoc requests such as no-show fees, late fees, debt or outstanding invoices, you can do this in Payments > Payment Requests
   • This will send the patient an SMS with a secure link so they can entier their card details and pay immediately - See the patient journey here
     
     
2. Manual card detail requests for upcoming appointments 
   • You can do this from within the Payments > Booking activity page
   • This will send a patient a request via SMS, push notification or Email to log into the HotDoc app and add a payment method for their appointment - See the patient journey here. 
     
     

9. Managing payments and educating your team and patients 

 As your patients and team start to use this, they may naturally have questions. Most questions can be preempted by good education and knowledge of the product.

Educate your patients and promote payments:

• 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 How to pay for an appointment using HotDoc
  
  
• If your patients want more resources on payments security, please direct them to these pages HotDoc Payments Security and Payments Security FAQs
   

Educate your Team:

• Get your team to review this getting started article.
  
  
• For guided content and videos, access our HotDoc Academy course Just log in with your HotDoc user account email and password. 
  
  
• Access all the payments support articles here. We recommend favouriting this link in your browser for easy access and checking out our Payments FAQs page for more assistance.
  
  
• Now that you understand payments, we recommend checking out Payments - The Patient Journey one more time.
  
  
• Download our marketing resources, including downloadable images, printable items for your practice, a video for your socials and TV Slides 
  
  
• For any payment security related enquires, you can check out this page: How we manage payment security at HotDoc. 
  
  
• Review this article  What happens to a patients payment details if I modify their appointment? to understand the actions you may need to take to re-capture payment details if you edit the patients appointment. 
  
  
• Ensure they access the following articles:
  
  • How to setup automatic payment requests for appointments
    
  • How do I enable payment pre-authorisation settings for my appointment types?
  • How to collect a payment for a patient's appointment
  • How should we process a patients Medicare Rebate for appointments paid for via HotDoc?
  • How do I cancel a HotDoc Payment?
  • How do I refund a HotDoc Payment to the patient?
  • How to create, refund or cancel a HotDoc 'Payment Request'
  • How do I view Payments Reporting in the Dashboard?