July 31, 2024
Payments for FHQC Programs: How to Approach Payment Acceptance
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) are a cornerstone of healthcare for underserved communities, serving diverse populations, including low-income individuals, uninsured, Medicaid or Medicare patients, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and those with limited English proficiency. For FQHCs, the financial challenges that come with accepting and managing payments are abundant and require a specialized solution.
FQHCs handle payments from patients with a wide range of financial situations, including many who are unbanked or underbanked. Over 70% of FQHC patients live at or below the federal poverty line, and 47% rely on Medicaid. The demographics FQHCs are made to serve require a latitude of payment options to include everyone.
Determining what you need, how to build it, how to manage it, and how to scale it sends you down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. Getting it right, however, is vital.
Pay Theory works with you to identify the right questions and answers for your platform’s needs and your merchant’s needs. We help you build high-quality user experiences and achieve breakthrough user outcomes, setting you up for success.
Below is a breakdown of what we believe should come with any payment solution you may choose to work with.
A payment solution needs to integrate with any electronic medical record software, whether you’re talking EPIC, Cerner, or any others. Look for your well-documented APIs from payment solutions to seamlessly integrate payment processing into existing systems while ensuring fast, secure, and reliable transactions.
Many major payment solutions are retail-oriented, lacking the feature set for healthcare. Other payment solutions don’t prioritize user experience on the platform/merchant side, leading to complicated and arduous builds with less-than-ideal outcomes.
The payment solution you choose needs to be able to effectively manage tens of thousands of patients across a complicated network of practices. Pay Theory is building intentional solutions for healthcare including a set of never-before-seen features and functions.
Digital payment solutions have pushed underserved groups to the sidelines, overlooking their financial needs. Along with card and ACH, there is an undeniable need for cash acceptance in the digital age. 1 in 3 young families in America are either un or under-banked. When must-pay organizations like FQHCs move to an electronic payment solution, there is now an additional barrier to this group of people. Pay Theory has built a cash-oriented solution.
There are many moving parts when supporting HSA and FSA payments in your software/platform. Consider a partner who can help you accept HSA and FSA cards. If you want to know more about accepting HSA and FSA payments, read our beginner’s guide.
While payment plans are becoming standard, they shouldn’t be overlooked. How they are managed depends on the mindset of the team who built it. Pay Theory’s recurring payments are uniquely suited for healthcare with features such as merchant hierarchy.
Innovating access to must-pay industries like healthcare means giving everyone a financial path to them. Pay Theory is made to solve healthcare’s complicated payment needs, combining top-of-class payment expertise to create a unified embedded money movement solution.
Visit paytheory.com/healthcare to learn more and to get in touch with our passionate sales team.
