Payment Management
Credit Card Surcharging
Card processing is a real cost, and some practices would rather pass part of it to the patients who choose to pay by credit card. That is what surcharging does. Here is how it works, which cards it touches, and what the patient sees before they decide.
Surcharging is available to offices on Smile Advantage Payments. It is switched on by the Smile Advantage team rather than from your settings, so contact support if you want it enabled.
What surcharging is
Section titled “What surcharging is”A surcharge is a small percentage added to a payment when the patient chooses to pay with an eligible credit card. It is optional for your practice, capped at 3%, and follows the US card network rules that govern when a surcharge may be applied and how it has to be disclosed.
The 3% cap is not a Smile Advantage choice. It is the maximum Visa and Mastercard permit.
Which cards are surcharged, and which are never
Section titled “Which cards are surcharged, and which are never”This is the part worth knowing before you answer a patient’s question at the desk.
- Eligible credit cards: Surcharged, at your office’s configured rate.
- Debit cards: Never surcharged, even when run as credit.
- Prepaid cards: Never surcharged.
- Other ineligible card types: Never surcharged.
The determination is made per transaction, not per patient. The same patient can pay one balance with a debit card and pay nothing extra, then pay the next with a credit card and see a surcharge.
What the patient sees
Section titled “What the patient sees”Patients are told before they commit, not after. Surcharging is designed to be transparent at the moment of payment:
- Side-by-side pricing. Before paying, the patient sees the debit price and the credit price together, so the difference is visible and the choice is theirs.
- On the card reader. For in-office terminal payments, the payment device shows the surcharge to the patient before they tap, insert, or swipe.
- On the receipt. The surcharge is itemized, so it is never a mystery line.
Because the choice is presented up front, a patient who would rather avoid the surcharge can simply pay with a debit card instead.
Patients you can exempt
Section titled “Patients you can exempt”Some payers should never be surcharged at all. The most common case is an insurance company reimbursing your practice with a prepaid card.
Your office can flag a payer as exempt from surcharging. Once flagged, no payment from that payer is surcharged, whichever way it is taken: online, on the terminal, keyed in by hand, or charged against a method on file.
Where your office allows it, staff can also waive the surcharge on an individual transaction, for the occasional case that does not warrant a permanent exemption.
How surcharge appears in your reporting
Section titled “How surcharge appears in your reporting”This is the detail that most often causes confusion when reconciling.
A surcharge is the cost of accepting the card. It is not money applied to the patient’s balance. So a $500 payment request paid with a 3% surcharge retires $500 of the balance, and the surcharge is reported separately rather than counted as $515 of collections.
That is why your collections figures and outstanding balances exclude surcharge. If you are comparing a deposit against a balance and the numbers look slightly off, surcharge is usually the reason, and separating the two is what keeps the balance accurate.
Turning it on
Section titled “Turning it on”Surcharging is enabled by the Smile Advantage team, not from your office settings. Reach out to support to have it set up, and they will confirm your rate and walk through how it will appear to your patients. Once it is on, it applies across your charge flows automatically, including the in-office payment screen described in Accept a Payment.