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VetVine Client Care
Recurrent Billing And Storing Credit Card Information
Practice Management
This question was submitted during a past Practice Management webinar:
Question:
I hope that you can help me with this practice management challenge. I have many clients who refill prescriptions by mail, and this activity is increasing to the point that I am going to ship meds automatically every 3 months (or whatever), and bill the credit card we have on file (we call the clients and leave messages for them to alert that we are billing and shipping).
In the past, I never kept credit card information and each client had to give their credit card information to my staff member each time they called to order refills. How would you store their credit card numbers safely? There must be a secure way to do this?
Answer by Sandy Walsh, RVT, CVPM:
This is always a challenge. Although veterinary hospitals were exempted from the Red Flag Rule which required a specific plan for keeping client information safe and secure - you still have a responsibility to keep the information safe. The way you are doing it now is not the most secure and is time consuming. There is a move toward automatic checking account debits for things such as preventive healthcare plans and recurring prescription refills. Kind of like a healthclub membership!
I would check with your bank to see if that is a system they can help you with. Then rather than ask the client for a credit card number each month they preauthorize an automatic deduction. You may also want to consider one of the on line store options like VetSource or VetCentric. The medication is shipped directly to the client when they need it. Whether it is a recurring prescription or a first time. The beauty is you don't have to stock the items in your hospital but you don't lose the revenue. Check with your primary drug vendor to see what options they have for this type of service. Good luck.