How Does ACH Work?


What is ACH?

ACH is an alternative payment method you can offer to your patients. With ACH, your patient’s bank account is charged directly using their account and routing numbers, instead of through a third party such as a debit or credit card.

What Are the Advantages of Using ACH?

  • The charge per transaction is only 25¢, compared to the current 2.1% + 30¢ per transaction for credit/debit card payments.

What Are the Disadvantages of Using ACH?

  • Because ACH goes through your customers’ banks, it can take up to 7 business days for the funds to be processed. Card payments are processed instantaneously, paid out in up to 2 days.
  • Setting up ACH requires a fairly lengthy verification process (you can read about this in detail below).
  • Unlike other payments, when a customer disputes an ACH payment, they immediately get their money back without going through a dispute process. As a clinic, you have no chance to contest the dispute or provide evidence that it might be invalid. This means that you run the risk of companies or individuals disputing payments without the possibility of recourse.

How to Set Up ACH:

  • Go to the Patient Billing page
  • Add a new bank account
  • Enter your patient’s name, account number, and routing number
  • You’ll receive a confirmation message that the bank account has been added and needs to be verified
  • The customer will get an email with details about the process and a link that they can use to complete the verification

Once the account is verified, you can request ACH payments just like you’d request debit or credit payments.

Read more about billing through Atlas here. If you want to know more about billing and charging on your DPC, click here.

What’s the Verification Process Like?

After you add a new bank account, your patients will need to verify ownership of that account. This is a security measure required by banks. This verification process can happen in two ways:

Patients Enter Their Own Information

  • Within 1-2 business days, your patients will receive two small deposits (labeled “Verification”) into their bank accounts
  • Your patients will enter those deposit amounts using the link we sent them

You Enter Your Patients’ Information

  • Within 1-2 business days, your patients will receive two small deposits (labeled “Verification”) into their bank accounts
  • Your patients can send you the amounts listed in their bank accounts
  • You can go to the Bank Accounts section and click on the “Verify” button
  • From there, you can enter your patients’ deposit amounts to verify their account for them

What Happens if a Patient Has Both ACH and Card Details Eligible for Auto-Charge?

If the patient has entered both ACH and credit card details and both are set to auto-charge, we’ll always try to take payments from the ACH first. We do this because ACH payments are much cheaper to process than credit card payments. You may disable the auto-charge in the ACH option if the patient  prefers to be auto-charged on their card.

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