This Rock Star Office Manager Saved Her Practice $130,000—Learn Her Trick to Reducing Processing Fees

Merchant Advocate helps to reduce processing fees.

 

Last year, processors collected a record-breaking $172 billion in credit card swipe fees. Processing costs continue to snowball at an unyielding pace, but what are you actually paying for? Statements are riddled with jargon and cryptic fees, making it nearly impossible to decipher your practice’s charges.

What’s a busy office manager to do?

Optimizing your practice’s payments may seem Herculean, but it’s absolutely NOT insurmountable.

Here’s the secret behind one such success story as told by a satisfied client with $130,000 in fees saved! Not only was it easy to get started, but it also continued to pay dividends as the practice grew.

How It Started

Meet Candy Miller, the savvy office manager behind the Illinois-based Advanced Dental Care. With nearly 25 years’ experience working with Curtis D. Fauble DDS, she has seen it all and knows the aggravation of dealing with processors and their often-confusing communications.

“One of the most frustrating things for me as an office manager was having to constantly monitor credit card processing,” Miller recalls of the time before aligning with Merchant Advocate. “[Processors] were sneaking things in left and right!”

“And you think, ‘Oh gosh, that went up a little bit.’ You’re finding all these strange charges… Something would show up on there and I’d wonder, ‘Are we in compliance with PCI? Wonder what this fee is about?’

You call, and they give you a little song and dance. [Mimicking the processor:] ‘Oh, that’s an annual fee… that’s a monthly fee… you’re going to see that quarterly… If a credit card is used on-site, off-site, if the credit card has rewards.’ And I thought, ‘This is a lot.’”

It was serendipitous when Miller met Merchant Advocate’s senior AADOM representative, Cheryl McKenna, at the annual conference a little over a decade ago. “When I found Cheryl and she explained what Merchant Advocate did, I thought, ‘this is a no-brainer.’”

Cheryl McKenna remembers that initial interaction, as well. “I met Candy in 2014, when she had one location, a different merchant services company and different practice management software. Candy emailed her statement for a free analysis, and we uncovered that her hunch was correct, the practice was overpaying.”

Unfortunately, this situation is fairly very commonplace. It is estimated that more than 72% of businesses are overpaying on their processing fees.

The credit card processing industry is largely unregulated, and increases are frequent. Merchant fees have quickly become one of the leading expenditure items for dental practices and without expert knowledge to analyze statements, it is very difficult to tell where there are hidden or inflated fees.

Miller continues: “I went straight back to Dr. Fauble and said, ‘I found this service at AADOM, and I think it could really be good for us.’ Merchant Advocate took away the worry and the confusion, and took the responsibility of monthly monitoring off my plate. Merchant Advocate has benefited our practice so much.”

Immediately, Merchant Advocate became Advanced Dental Care’s champion, handling a less-than-helpful processor.

“I remember the phone number her processor gave us to discuss her rates was wrong,” McKenna says. “Maybe they didn’t want us to try and get her costs lowered? That number was answered as ‘Hip-Hop Abs’! The good news is that we prevailed and negotiated savings of approximately $10,800 per year and the practice didn’t have to change processors.”

How It’s Going

Advanced Dental Care began as a single location, but in the more than a decade they have been working with Merchant Advocate they have expanded three times. With each new endeavor, Merchant Advocate was there to support, whether it was ensuring compliance, removing junk fees from statements at new locations, shopping for a new processor, or even providing for the latest compatible front-end equipment.

As Candy alluded to earlier, PCI compliance, though vital for any merchant, is a widely misunderstood security component meant to protect the patient and practice. Yet more than 50% of businesses are noncompliant or unaware of their status!

In order to ensure PCI compliance, a practice must implement the proper security policies, procedures, and staff training.

Other simple steps include changing your user account passwords on a regular basis, using a third party to monitor your network security, and reviewing your physical security measures such as employee training and IT infrastructure. Since Merchant Advocate analyzes statements monthly, they are on the lookout for any noncompliance fees.

“We recently acquired another location,” Miller says. “And of course, Merchant Advocate went straight to work and found me the best contract. The next thing I know, the credit card machines are in the mail, and I’ve got to login. You just can’t beat it!”

So many components go into the opening of each new location, but it’s also a good time for an overall health check.

  • Are all of your accounts using the same type of equipment?
  • Are there more favorable rates available with system upgrades or other changes?

These are the things you need to look out for that Merchant Advocate can advise on.

Candy reflects on a decade’s long successful partnership: “Cheryl’s renegotiated contracts for us multiple times. She’s gotten me by far better pricing than I would have been able to get… And my favorite thing about Merchant Advocate is, if something goes awry, they call me and they’re like, ‘Hey Candy, your next statement looks like this, this is what happened. And we’re getting it corrected for you.’”

Welcome Aboard

“When you start to talk about something that makes a person uncomfortable, and I feel like most office managers think, ‘Oh yeah, we use credit card processing, everybody does. I don’t want to tackle that’ because it’s so overwhelming,” Miller says.

“But as an office manager, you have to know—this process is SO simple. It’s the simplest way to save your practice money, because you hardly have to do anything.”

Also consider Merchant Advocate’s long-standing relationship with AADOM. “We are honored to have worked with the AADOM tribe for more than a decade,” says McKenna, adding: “If you’re an office manager who wants to protect the practice’s bottom line, let us take a look at your most recent merchant statement.”

Rock Star Status

Miller’s best advice: “The thing I always say to other office managers is, if you want to look like a rock star to your doctor, bring Merchant Advocate to them! Explain: ‘We want to pay the least amount for credit card processing to bring the most revenue into our practice,’ and anybody’s going to be on board with that.”

“It’s just made so much sense—and we’re not corporate, we’re just a private fee for service practice—and patients love credit cards. I mean we do, too! I pay all of our office bills with credit cards. You want your rewards, you want your points, that’s how it is.

But as a practice, you’ve got to be mindful of that because it’s costing you, and Merchant Advocate does the legwork for me. It’s just super.”

To start your road to rock stardom and saving money, contact Merchant Advocate HERE.

 

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