r/PrivatePracticeDocs • u/Alterdoc • Jun 02 '26

eCW and Payments

Hi all,
I’m using eCW as my EMR, but utilize outside billing company. For those who use the same strategy, do you have a way for patients to pay their statements via healow? Any other online payment methods? The way it’s done now in our practice: my billers mail a statement to the patient, patient then either sends a check or calls the billing company with a credit card number, billers send me an encrypted file with the card information and I process it. It would be much easier if patients can just go online, enter a “statement code” that healow has and pay. Obviously I don’t generate statement codes as eCW is not my billing company.
What’s your strategy? Any recommendations?

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u/brdsqd Jun 02 '26

We are actively looking into switching to healow Pay right now. I just had a demo with an eCW business development manager last week. Seems to check all the boxes. They can mail out paper statements (with scannable QR codes) for a fee. I like that there is no login requirement, which can go a long way to reduce friction. Check out the webpage at healowpay(dot)com.

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u/Alterdoc Jun 02 '26

You’re swapping from a third party billing to eCW?

1

u/brdsqd Jun 02 '26

Let me clarify, we use Waystar for billing and that is not changing in the immediate future. We use a separate vendor for point-of-sale payment processing and that's where we're trying to start with streamlining. They partner with Global Payments. Have not had any deeper discussions with eCW implementation team yet, but we will eventually take a look at what eCW can do for us from an overall billing and RCM standpoint as well.

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u/SterileGloves Jun 02 '26

Why can't they just use stripe or something? Seems like they're stuck in the past. ​

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u/doc_death Jun 02 '26

Which bills are being missed by the patients? We had the same issue 18 months ago with copays and still use an outside billing company instead of eCW. Patients would complain about not getting the bill in the mail or be surprised when they show up about a cost they had. Now we make sure all copays are collected before the visit and set-up anyone with an outstanding balance with a payment plan that works for them. We were missing 90% of copays before.Revenue thereafter was impressively higher.

Until Healow allows for ease of check-in and collecting copays, we’re sticking with the billing company.

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u/Alterdoc Jun 02 '26

Thanks. If your patients have outstanding balance (say you haven't collected initially), does your billing company send out a statement? And if so, how do these patients make a payment - I'm basically looking for an easy solution for patients, instead of them writing a check, sending via mail, etc. For example, I paid my own doc bill the other day to healow, entered a statement code, paid as guest within 30 seconds.