Anyone who accepts recurring payments in their practice (such as DPC or concierge membership fees) can have recurring subscription payments that run automatically within Cerbo via our integration with Stripe.
NOTE: Subscriptions in Cerbo are designed for recurring membership subscriptions, and not for payment plans. This is because a patient's subscription payments are automatically paired with corresponding subscription charges, and are not available to apply to other charges for services or purchases.
Step 1: Define Your Subscription Plans
Set up your subscription plans under Admin > Manage > Subscriptions. Click on Add New Subscription Plan to define a new subscription that you want to offer.
"Add New Subscription Plan" Fields
- Name of Plan
- Unique Identifier - generally the same or similar to the name, but must be unique and shouldn't have spaces. This is required by the Stripe API but is not otherwise used in our system.
- Amount
- Interval - Subscription charges can be set to occur at regular intervals up to 1 year apart: every month, every 2 weeks, every year, etc. Most common is the monthly subscription.
- Trial Period (optional) - days between the subscription start date (which you set when assigning a patient to a subscription plan) and the date the first charge is run.
Step 2: Add a Patient to a Subscription Plan
A subscription can be assigned to a particular patient via the patient's chart in the Billing tab of the Patient Information window, which can be accessed by popping out the Patient Information block or by clicking on the text at the top of the yellow Billing block that says Subscription.
Manage Subscription Fields
Date of First Charge - specify the date you want the first charge to be run.
Note that the date you select will be the date the first subscription charge will be run, regardless of whether the subscription has a trial period. To make sure a trial period is honored, you would need to take that into account when setting the first payment date.
Automatic Cancellation - you can specify that the subscription should automatically end after a set number of payments have occurred. If no automatic stop is specified, the subscription will continue indefinitely until cancelled.
Adding/Editing/Cancelling a Patient's Subscription Plan
Add a patient to an existing subscription plan using the Current Subscription drop down menu in the Billing Info tab of the patient's Patient Information pop out.
A patient must have a credit card on file in order to be assigned to a subscription plan. However, the credit card on file can be deleted even though a patient is part of a subscription plan; the next subscription charge will fail if a new credit card has not been added before the automatic payment is set to occur.
Change a patient's subscription plan by selecting a different plan from Current Subscription drop down menu. Note that this does not change the billing date. At the moment that you change the patient's plan, the system charges or refunds the difference in price between the two plans, prorated according to when in the billing cycle you make the change.
To see when the next subscription payment is set to occur for a particular patient, hover over the subscription plan name in the Billing block's title bar on that patient's dashboard page.
Cancel a patient's subscription by selecting No Subscription from the Current Subscription drop down menu.
Setting up Recurring Payments with a Stop Date
It is possible to set up recurring payments that will end after a specified number of payments - for example, to help patients cover costs with a payment plan. To do this, set up the subscription as normal - how often you would like payment and for what amount - under Admin > Manage > Subscription Plans. Then, when you assign the subscription to the patient, choose the number of payments you would like to process from the Automatic Cancellation drop down menu. The patient will be charged for that number of payments, after which point the subscription will stop collecting payments.
NOTE that subscriptions in MD HQ are designed for recurring membership subscriptions, and not for payment plans. This is because a patient's subscription payments are automatically paired with corresponding subscription charges, and are not available to apply to other charges for services or purchases.
Removing or Editing Subscription Plans
Your custom subscription plans can be deleted via your Stripe management console
Except for the name, existing subscription plans cannot be edited either via the EMR or via Stripe. To make a change to a subscription plan, you will need to create a new plan, transfer existing patients over, and then delete the old plan.
Note that if you delete a plan, patients who are subscribed to that plan will still be charged on a recurring basis until their subscription is cancelled, i.e., a different plan or No Subscription is selected from the Current Subscription drop down menu.
Continuing Subscription Payments after Replacing a Failed Credit Card
Generally, if you update a patient's credit card information within a few days of the initial credit charge failing, the subscription will go ahead and charge as normal with the new card information. The subscription will generally process within a day or two of adding a new card. You can look at your settings in the Stripe management console to see how long this period is before the subscription charge is marked as failed.
If the subscription payment is long overdue, the overdue invoice will show up in the Billing tab on the Overdue Invoices tab. Once the a new card is added, hit the Retry Payment option to rerun the subscription. More info here.
Adding a Subscription Paid for by Another Patient
If you have a relationship set up between two patients, and one of the patient's bills are paid for by the other - you have two options for adding a subscription to the payees account. You can either
- Add a family membership -type subscription to your subscriptions list. The cost of this subscription should cover both family members subscriptions. Then add that subscription for the patient who will be paying (the payor). On the payee's chart, go to add a subscription and select Subscribed through [Payor's] plan.
- Add the payor's credit card directly to the payee's chart (under Patient Information > Billing Info), then add individual subscriptions for each patient, both using that card.