If your practice currently accepts credit cards, or if you are considering incorporating them into your payment options, you likely have questions regarding the policies surrounding their use. To help you get the answers you need, we have compiled all the questions that were asked during our recent webinar, “3 Must-Haves for Client Credit Card Processing,” along with the presenter’s responses. Feel free to add any new questions in the comment section below.
Q: What is PCI?
A: PCI compliance stands for Payment Card Industry compliance. This is the regulation that the federal government puts on the credit card industry as well as merchants who accept credit cards. Similar to HIPAA in terms of documentation and patient record-keeping, PCI is the regulatory board that oversees all aspects of credit card payments.
Q: What sort of fines do practices face for non-compliance?
A: Most people don’t realize that they can be fined up to $2,500 per card that they’re not handling properly. So if you see 400 patients over the life of your practice, and you handle those cards improperly, you would face $1 million in fines. A big company like Target can handle that, but for most medical practices, that would put them out of business.
Q: What percentage of medical offices are PCI compliant?
A: An estimated 95 percent of practices are not PCI compliant, in one way or another.
Q: How do I know if my office is PCI compliant?
A: The first year you set up with a merchant services company, you have to take a PCI compliance survey. Then there’s a yearly survey after that. If you haven’t taken some sort of survey, or don’t remember taking one, chances are, you’re not compliant… and there’s a 100 percent chance that you’re being charged a monthly fee. That fee can range from $20 to $100 a month.
