CUSTOMER STORY
Cutting Admin Time
SIA Medical Centre’s Payment Solution with HotDoc
Located in Footscray, SIA Medical Centre is a busy inner-city clinic that offers a wide range of services, including, but not limited to, General Medical Consultations, Skin Checks, Procedures, Travel Health Advice and Vaccinations, as well as Care Plans and Health Assessments. The practice supports a diverse patient base across all age groups and offers appointments until 11 pm on most evenings to support their patients when they’re in need.
During a period of operational change, the team identified several areas that could be improved — particularly in how payments were managed — prompting a closer look at systems and processes.
Transitioning from Bulk Billing: What needed to change?
A key issue was patients leaving without paying for their consultations. Staff were spending a lot of time following up on unpaid fees, and there was no effective system to manage or reconcile outstanding balances.
Adding to the complexity, the practice had recently transitioned from bulk billing to mixed billing, causing confusion and pushback from long-time patients unaccustomed to paying out-of-pocket. Attempts to collect payments after consultations were inefficient, often involving time-consuming phone calls, emails, and even posted invoices.
Putting HotDoc Payments into Practice
To tackle these issues, Lisa and the team turned to HotDoc Payments. Initially, they used the card storage feature to help patients get familiar with online payments; however, they encountered challenges with failed transactions due to patients having insufficient funds on their cards at the time of their appointment.
The real turning point came with the adoption of HotDoc’s pre-authorisation functionality earlier this year, allowing the clinic to securely hold payment prior to the appointment and automatically process charges afterwards.
This approach meant fewer manual follow-ups, greater compliance from patients, and a more consistent cash flow.
Training, Cleanup, and Buy-in:
Making the shift work for their staff and patients
Making the shift work for their staff and patients
Implementing HotDoc Payments and onboarding staff was straightforward. The biggest task was cleaning up a backlog to get ready for the change.
Once the system was reset, with a tech-savvy team, training took only about 10 minutes per person, complemented by self-paced learning modules from HotDoc Academy. Staff have continued to evolve with new feature releases, most recently adopting collecting payment via the Sidebar. Previously, the team implemented exempting individual patients who were not suitable for using online payments in combination with patient-wide age exemptions, such as patients under 16 or over 80 and DVA cardholders.
Appointment types were customised using Custom Sessions to reflect the clinic’s tiered billing structure (standard hours, after-hours, weekends), ensuring patients received accurate fee estimates during booking.
Efficiency & Outcomes
- Significant reduction in payment follow-ups. With pre-authorisation in place, most consultations were paid efficiently, and the number of unpaid bills dropped drastically.
- Improved patient experience. Patients appreciated the convenience, especially regulars who no longer needed to check out at reception.
- Time saved across the board. Staff were freed from tedious reconciliation tasks, and Medicare claims are submitted promptly by the team.
- Greater operational clarity. The practice moved from dozens of unpaid invoices to a manageable handful at any time.
- Flexible handling for exceptions. Older patients or those unfamiliar with technology were easily exempted from online payments and managed separately.
Advice for Other Practice Managers
“Your admin staff aren’t accountants. Let them focus on patients, not reconciling payments all day. Try it out to see if it works for your clinic”
Lisa’s advice is clear: give HotDoc Payments a trial period to see its impact. While there’s a small per-transaction cost for pre-authorisation, it’s far outweighed by the time and administrative costs saved on manual billing and follow-up.
It’s especially helpful for practices juggling a mixed billing model and a diverse patient base. With good system setup and minimal training, the transition can be smooth and worthwhile.
To learn more about HotDoc’s complete payments solution, click here.
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