Stripe payments in Engage allow practices to securely charge patients upfront when booking appointments online. Fees can be configured at either a practice level or a provider level, giving flexibility to apply consistent pricing across the practice or enable individual providers to set their own appointment fees.
By collecting payment during the booking process via Stripe, Engage helps reduce no-shows, streamline payment workflows, and ensure revenue is secured before the appointment takes place. The booking experience is further enhanced with integrated Medicare details management and secure card tokenisation for safe, efficient payments.
Contents
Pre-Requisites
Before enabling Stripe payments in Engage, the following configuration needs to be complete:
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Stripe integration is active within MediRecords.
For guidance, see Stripe Payments - Practice & Provider Configuration.
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Digital Payments configuration is completed at the Practice and/or User level.
For guidance, see Stripe Payments - Practice & Provider Configuration.
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Appointment Types are flagged to show in Engage.
For guidance, see Engage: Appointment Configuration.
Configuring Appointment Fees
There are two options for setting fees in Engage:
- Practice driven fees - set at a practice level for appointment types, and all appointments booked regardless of provider will be charged the practice fee.
- Provider driven fees - set at a provider level per appointment type, and allows all providers to configure and charge their respective fees individually.
Practice-Level Configuration
The practice fees you configure will be used for all providers, unless a provider has chosen to override this setting with their own fees. For more information on provider fees, please see Provider-Level Configuration.
- Navigate to More, click Settings, and choose the Configuration tile.
- Select your Practice.
- Open Digital Payments. A list of Appointment Types with an editable Amount field will be displayed. Enter the fee for each type, and click Save.
Note: If an appointment type does not have a fee set, the Stripe payment window will not be displayed to the patient when booking an appointment of that type.
Provider-Level Configuration
If each provider charges different fees for their appointments, they may choose to override the practice fees with their own individual fees. This means that when a patient books an appointment with that provider, they will see the provider's configured fee, rather than the practice level fee.
- Click the Profile icon in the top-right of the window, and select Preferences.
- Go to the Digital Payments tab, enter your fees against the relevant appointment types, and click Save.
Excluding Patients from Payment
If you have a patient who you would like to be exempt from paying appointment fees when booking appointments through Engage, you can exclude them from online payments.
- Open a patient file, go to the Details tab, and click Settings.
• Useful for patients with DVA, Workcover, patients with chronic illness, etc
• This allows specific patients to book without an upfront fee, while still maintaining an upfront fee for other patients.
Displaying Payment Information to Patients
When a patient books an appointment for an Appointment Type that has Stripe fees configured, the patient will be presented with an Appointment Summary window, which includes their payment and Medicare information.
- After the patient has chosen their appointment type and preferred time, they are presented with an appointment summary window before finalising the booking.
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Clicking the Show More hyperlink in the summary will display the practice's address and phone number for any patient queries.
- The configured cost for the appointment is displayed within the summary.
- If the patient has a Medicare Card in their file, the Medicare Card number shows under payment information.
If the patient finds this information to be out of date, they can update their Medicare Card number within this window, and it will automatically update the patient's billing information within Care.
• The Processing Fee is shown only if Surcharging (Pass Stripe processing fees to the payer) is enabled.
• The displayed appointment cost is coming from the designated amount in step #4 of Configuring Appointment Fees.
Stripe Payment Workflow
Secure Digital Wallet & Bank-Level Security (Tokenisation)
If your Stripe integration is active and an appointment fee is set, MediRecords will securely process the payment. When this happens, the patient's card is converted into a unique, encrypted key - this is called tokenisation, and prevents against breaches. This speeds up future payments for both the practice and the patient, while ensuring the information is stored securely.
If Stripe is not active or fees have not been set, you will need to use other methods for payment collection.
After a patient has added a payment method to their Wallet within Engage, they will be able to use this payment method for all future bookings, in a quick and safe way.
Reserved Booking Workflow
When a patient begins entering payment information in the appointment booking workflow in Engage, their chosen appointment slot is reserved for them for a short time. This assists with ensuring the patient has enough time to review their appointment details and personal information, and process a payment without the risk of another patient taking their chosen time slot.
When the patient begins entering payment details, the following occurs:
- Instant Slot Protection - the patient's chosen time is reserved as soon as they enter payment information.
- Seamless Payment Processing - the slot shows as “Reserved” in the calendar, updating availability to avoid double bookings.
- Finalising Your Booking - after the payment is successfully processed, the appointment is confirmed, and the patient receives a confirmation email.
- If Payment Isn’t Completed - if the payment isn't able to be processed within a few minutes, the reservation ends, and the slot will be reopened for bookings. This occurs whether the patient has spent too long without processing a payment, or if there are not enough funds in the card to process the payment.
The reserved booking workflow helps to avoid double bookings, ensure that patients are able to secure their chosen time slots, and reduces scheduling errors.
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