I’ve been thinking about this question lately. At first, payments seem pretty universal. A transaction is a transaction, right?
Not necessarily.
Healthcare is a good example. A patient trying to pay a medical bill isn’t thinking about interchange, gateways, authorization rates or payment infrastructure. They just want the payment to work. When it doesn’t, the consequences can extend well beyond a declined transaction.
72% of consumers under 35 have switched providers or are willing to do so for a better healthcare payment experience. (J.P. Morgan)
On the provider side, 71% of healthcare providers say it takes more than 30 days to collect payments after a patient encounter. (J.P. Morgan)
That puts payments somewhere between a back-office function and a customer experience issue. Payments influence how easily a patient can pay, how efficiently a provider collects revenue, and ultimately the economics of the business.
This is one reason healthcare is an industry we focus on at Cartis Payments. We’ve written about everything from understanding healthcare merchant statements to what happens when a patient’s HSA card is declined, as well as how patient expectations around payments are changing.
The point isn’t that healthcare needs a completely different payment system. It’s that the right payment strategy starts with understanding how payments actually affect the business you’re serving.
A healthcare provider has different payment challenges than a retailer. An ISV serving healthcare has different considerations than an ecommerce platform. A payment partner who understands those differences can ask better questions and potentially identify opportunities that a more generic approach might miss.
So here’s the question I’m curious about:
Does industry expertise actually matter when choosing a payment partner?
Or is payment processing ultimately just payment processing?
If you’re evaluating your healthcare payment strategy, the team at Cartis Payments can help you look beyond the transaction itself and identify opportunities to improve the patient experience, streamline payment operations, and strengthen the economics of your payments.
Let’s take a closer look at what your payments could be doing better.