Reducing Payment Processing Costs for a Multi-Location Healthcare Group
SummitCare Medical Partners ran 14 clinics on separate merchant accounts with no shared reporting. A consolidated structure and interchange optimization produced $186,000 in projected annual savings.
- Client
- SummitCare Medical Partners
- Client type
- Multi-location medical group
- Company size
- 500–1,000 employees
- Locations
- 14
- Processing volume
- $2.4M / month
Executive summary
SummitCare added clinics faster than it standardized payments. Fourteen locations were processing on five different merchant relationships with three pricing models, so no one could answer what payments actually cost. We consolidated the merchant structure, requalified interchange on card-not-present transactions, and connected settlement data to the group's accounting system.
$186,000 in projected annual savings.
42% faster reconciliation at month-end close.
One consolidated reporting dashboard for all 14 clinics.
Effective rate variance between clinics reduced from 87 basis points to 6.
Client profile
- Industry
- Healthcare — multi-specialty clinics
- Locations
- 14 clinics across three states
- Monthly volume
- $2.4 million
- Average ticket
- $212
- Payment mix
- 68% card present, 24% online patient payments, 8% ACH
The challenge
Increasing processing costs, inconsistent reporting, and separate merchant accounts across locations.
- Effective rate varied from 2.41% to 3.28% between clinics doing near-identical work.
- Month-end close required manually pulling 14 statements from five portals.
- Patient payment disputes were routed to whichever processor owned that clinic.
- Leadership had no group-level view of volume, fees, or deposit timing.
Why the previous setup was failing
- • Five merchant relationships inherited through practice acquisitions.
- • Three pricing models: two tiered, two blended, one interchange-plus.
- • Terminal fleet from four vendors with inconsistent firmware.
- • Statement review handled ad hoc by each clinic manager.
- • Each acquisition kept its legacy processor instead of joining a group structure.
- • Tiered pricing hid downgrades behind qualified/mid/non-qualified buckets.
- • Card-not-present patient payments were missing data that would have qualified for lower interchange.
- • No single owner was accountable for payments across the group.
Our assessment
- Twelve months of statements normalized to a single interchange-plus baseline.
- Transaction-level review of downgrade reasons on portal and phone payments.
- Terminal and gateway inventory mapped against the practice management platform.
- Deposit timing compared across all five relationships.
The recommended solution
- Consolidate to a single merchant structure with per-location MIDs under one group hierarchy.
- Move all locations to auditable interchange-plus pricing.
- Fix data capture on card-not-present transactions to stop avoidable downgrades.
- Build one centralized reporting dashboard covering every clinic.
- Integrate settlement and fee data with the accounting system.
Implementation Process
- 1
Weeks 1–2: Assessment
Statement normalization, downgrade analysis, and integration inventory across all clinics.
- 2
Weeks 3–4: Structure & pilot
Group hierarchy built, two pilot clinics migrated and monitored in parallel with legacy accounts.
- 3
Weeks 5–8: Phased rollout
Remaining 12 clinics migrated in waves of three, with staff training at each site.
- 4
Weeks 9–10: Reporting & close
Dashboard rollout, accounting integration validation, and first consolidated month-end close.
Technology and integrations
Integration changes
- • Practice management integration standardized across all 14 clinics.
- • Automated daily settlement file into the general ledger with per-location coding.
- • Patient portal payments routed through a single gateway with tokenized card-on-file.
Processing changes
- • Single acquirer, group hierarchy, 14 child MIDs for location-level reporting.
- • Interchange-plus pricing with published pass-through.
- • Level II data enabled where applicable on commercial and HSA cards.
- • Unified next-day funding schedule across all clinics.
Obstacles and resolutions
Two clinics were mid-contract with early termination exposure.
Migrated those sites last and offset the fees against first-year savings, documented in writing before signature.
Practice management vendor required certification for the new gateway.
Certification started in week one so it never sat on the critical path.
Front-desk staff were used to four different terminal interfaces.
Standardized hardware plus a 30-minute per-site training session and a one-page reference card.
Measurable results
$186,000 projected annual savings (≈ 0.65% effective rate reduction on $28.8M annual volume).
Operational improvements
- • One support path for every location instead of five processor help desks.
- • Standardized terminal fleet reduced hardware troubleshooting at the front desk.
- • Clinic managers stopped chasing statements from separate portals.
Reporting improvements
- • Group-level and location-level views in one dashboard.
- • Fee detail broken out by interchange, assessments, and processor margin.
- • Settlement data posted to the GL with per-location coding, no manual entry.
Funding improvements
- • Uniform next-day funding replaced a mix of one, two, and three-day schedules.
- • Deposit-to-batch matching automated for all clinics.
Customer experience improvements
- • Patients see one consistent payment experience across clinics.
- • Card-on-file tokens transfer between locations for recurring balances.
- • Disputes resolved through one team instead of being bounced between processors.
Before and after
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Merchant relationships | 5 | 1 group hierarchy |
| Effective rate | 2.84% blended | 2.19% blended |
| Month-end reconciliation | 5.5 days | 3.2 days |
| Reporting systems | 5 portals + spreadsheets | 1 dashboard |
| Funding schedule | 1–3 business days, varies | Next day, all sites |
“We finally gained visibility across every location and reduced costs without disrupting patient payments.”
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Read insightsFrequently asked questions
Are these results guaranteed?+
No. This engagement is demonstration content built on realistic scenarios. Actual outcomes depend on your volume, mix, software, and current pricing — which is exactly what a review establishes.
How long did the SummitCare Medical Partners engagement take?+
The implementation ran across 4 phases; most comparable environments cut over in 7 to 14 business days once scope is agreed.
Do we have to change software to see similar results?+
Usually not. Most of this work happens in merchant structure, pricing, data capture, and integration configuration around software you already run.
Can we see a version of this analysis for our business?+
Yes. A payment review returns the same structure — assessment, recommendation, projected impact — against your own statements.
Want this analysis for your business?
Send us your current setup and we'll return a written assessment covering cost, integrations, reporting, and funding.
Related solutions and references
The pages that explain the payment methods, integrations and account structure behind this engagement.
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