How To Pick a Veterinary Practice Payment and Billing Solution for Your Clinic: 9 Things To Consider

Modern veterinary practice payment and billing solutions can help you expand your veterinary care services by providing more flexible financial assistance and online payment options. When shopping for veterinary practice management software for payment collection, you’ll find tons of options ranging from financing tools to convenient payment option platforms. 

At Weave, we provide an all-in-one solution that combines simple payment plan scheduling with easy collection methods and financing options so you can save money and grow your office. Below, we discuss the top things you should look for when selecting payment software for your patient portal. 

Important Considerations When Picking a Payment and Billing Solution

Payments are an integral aspect of all veterinary practices. Providing each pet owner with a convenient way to fulfill their invoice for the care provided to their companion animals can improve your appointment scheduling rates, patient care satisfaction, revenue flow, client experience, and more. Below are the top nine things you should look for when comparing veterinary software for billing solutions. 

1. Billing and Payment Features

If you want to improve the payment experience at your veterinary clinic, then you’ll need to select a solution with excellent convenience features. A couple of popular features among medical practices and veterinary medicine clinics alike include the following:

• Text-to-pay: Text-to-pay sends each client a personalized link to their pet’s bill, where they can easily pay it online in just a few seconds. Weave payments includes the text-to-pay feature, where you can personalize messages with things like animal info.

• Buy Now, Pay over time (BN-POT): BN-POT lets each client create wellness plans for their pets that work with their financial needs. At Weave, we partner with Sunbit to provide flexible financing options.

2. Variety of Payment Options

When healthcare providers offer numerous payment method options, people can fulfill invoices using their preferred method. Often, veterinary hospital bills — especially for specialty care services with clinical pathology labs — can quickly add up, so providing flexible payment options can help your small animal owners fulfill their payments. 

One way to provide diverse payment options is by ensuring that your system accepts all major providers, like Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, etc. A great way to include more flexibility is by broadening how you accept payments. 

We conducted a survey and found that 30% of customers prefer to pay bills via text. See how you can start sending text-to-pay messages with Weave today. 

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3. Time Required To Collect Payments

Between processing claims from pet insurance provider companies and waiting on each patient to fulfill payments, receiving payments can take time. Consider which platforms will help your vet practice receive funds faster. 

Typically, if the software makes it easier for animal owners to fulfill payments, then you can expect to receive them faster. If patients must send checks through the mail to your office, you may have to wait weeks or longer. Conversely, a text-to-pay link can offer instant fulfillment. 

Based on our research, 83% of offices using Weave were able to collect payments faster. Learn how Weave Payments can speed up your collection times by scheduling a demo. 

4. Convenience for Staff and Clients

Your veterinary team is already busy handling the pets, so you don’t want to make their jobs more complicated with a hard-to-use billing system. Many payment systems for vets are synced with patient record data, automating the invoice process. Essentially, the medical records for each animal will integrate with their billing statuses for seamless control over the entire process. 

To find the most convenient system for your staff and clients, we recommend sitting down with your front desk team to learn their pain points and specific wants. For example, your team may say that they want a solution that also includes easy online scheduling to free up phone lines. 

5. Reputation: Security, Transparency, and Honesty

Animal hospitals need secure billing systems just like any other business. When you seek out third-party payment processing solutions, you should consider the software’s security, transparency, and reviews. Many systems now keep all information in cloud databases to prevent data breaches. 

Any system you choose should adhere to PCI compliance to keep client information safe. Since your veterinary practice is part of the medical field, you may also need HIPAA-compliant software that secures patient information. 

6. Ease of Implementation

The front desk staff at your clinic may not be tech wizards, so you don’t want to select software that’s excessively complex to use. Complicated experiences will waste work hours and potentially prevent clients from wanting to complete payments using the new tool. 

Many platforms provide free demonstrations so you can see exactly how easy it will be to implement across your office. We recommend considering both the patient and clinic end, as you ideally want to improve the experience for your team and customers. You can consider including a few of your staff members in this portion of the decision process to ensure that everyone agrees on how easy or complex the implementation will be.

7. Reliability of Service

You need reliable software that can handle large usage levels. Nothing’s worse than slow loading speeds and crashing systems when you need to complete a payment. An unreliable service won’t help your clinic.

While you cannot always test reliability ahead of time, you can read reviews and ask targeted questions during the decision process. For example, try asking how many users can operate the system at once, and whether or not it will crash if too many people use it. Be sure to select a payment platform that your practice can grow into in case you gain a few new clients in the future. 

8. Integrations and Compatibility

Payment processing tools can do much more than just collect payments. Modern platforms often feature all-encompassing enhancements that combine all of your internal and external operations. If you’re interested in unifying your software, be sure to select a platform that can integrate with everything else you use. 

A few primary integration considerations include the following:

• Practice management systems

• Patient records

• Financing providers and credit cards that your clients may use (like CareCredit)

• Third-party payment systems, like PayPal, Apple Pay, Zelle, etc.

• Health insurance company claims and approvals

• Appointment scheduling

• Workflows
• Digital forms

9. Customer Support

The final consideration when selecting the right payment processing system for your practice should be customer support channels. If you have an issue with the tool, a simple question, or anything else, how will you get in contact with the company? You want to select a provider with ample customer support options, including self-service guides, 24/7 chat options, live support channels, and more. 

The best way to learn about customer support offerings is by reading company reviews. Reviews often reveal how helpful support teams are in helping vet practices through any complex scenarios that arise. If a platform has all negative reviews, you may want to seek a different option.

How Weave Payments Saves You Money and Grows Your Practice

At Weave, our all-in-one integrated payment system can help your practice save money, so you can focus on expanding. With Weave Payments, your clients can enjoy text-to-pay, Buy Now, Pay Over Time, financing options, and more, while your business expands with faster payment collection rates.

Activate your front desk’s newest superpower today by logging into your Weave Payment Settings and validating your CareCredit Merchant ID (MID). Connect your accounts in seconds to start seamlessly collecting CareCredit payments without ever leaving Weave.

In our 2023 Vet Business Insights e-book, we explore how 31% of providers see an increase in patients when using a payment plan. If you aren’t yet automating your payment system with convenient, personalized experiences, now’s the time to start. 

Schedule a demo with Weave today to see how our platform can transform your veterinary practice. 

Want to see
more about
Weave?
1 System for Phones, Texting, Payments, & More
 Access a full suite of patient communication tools with Weave! Texting, payments, reviews, & scheduling in one place. Get started today!
Schedule Demo