The Hidden Costs of Manual Payment Processing in Healthcare: Why Modernization Matters
Outdated billing workflows create hidden expenses, inefficiencies and compliance risks—while frustrating staff and patients and probably costing your practice more than you think. A modernized payment platform can boost revenue, streamline operations and deliver a better patient experience for Arkansas healthcare operators of all sizes.
It’s nearing the end of another busy day helping patients. One team member prints out the day’s patient balances. Another staffer manually enters a credit card payment into the system while answering questions from a patient who’s confused about how to make an over-the-phone payment. Meanwhile, a third person stays late to reconcile the day’s transactions, only to discover errors—two payments were misapplied, and one wasn’t recorded at all.
These aren’t just minor inefficiencies—they are symptoms of a larger problem: the hidden costs of manual payment processing in healthcare organizations.
Even with electronic health records and patient portals in place, many healthcare practices still rely on outdated billing workflows. Paper-based systems, disjointed tools and fragmented processes seem manageable, but are quietly draining your revenue, increasing the workload for your staff and frustrating your patients, who expect their healthcare payment platform to operate as smoothly as any other online payment portal.
In this blog, we’ll explore how manual payment processing affects healthcare organizations in Arkansas—highlighting the true costs from administrative burdens to compliance risks—and show how moving to a modern end-to-end payment solution can help your practice reclaim time and revenue and streamline the payments process.
The Administrative Drain: Labor Costs and Human Error
Manual payment processing might seem like a minor detail, but it quickly adds up in both time and dollars. From printing invoices to manually logging payments and chasing down unpaid balances, the administrative burden consumes precious hours each week.
According to the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), administrative costs make up a significant portion of healthcare spending, and much of this can be attributed to inefficient payment processes. For healthcare teams in Arkansas, this inefficiency is magnified when handling multiple, disconnected systems. Staff members spend more time bridging the gaps between systems rather than focusing on patient care.
Common manual tasks that consume time and lead to errors include:
- Printing and mailing paper statements
- Taking payments over the phone or in person
- Manually entering credit card numbers
- Cross-referencing EHR/EMR and payment systems for accuracy
- Reconciling payments at the end of the day
- Following up on overdue accounts
These tasks may seem routine, but they take a toll on operational efficiency and profitability. In a healthcare environment where time is crucial and staff burnout is a growing concern, the hidden costs of manual payment processing shouldn’t be ignored.
The Patient Experience Gap: Unmet Expectations Lead to Unpaid Bills
Patients in Arkansas, like everywhere else, expect convenience when managing their medical bills. When a practice offers limited payment options, like paper statements or phone-only payments, the chances of receiving timely payment decrease.
In fact, a recent PaymentsJournal survey revealed that 62% of healthcare consumers prefer using patient portals to settle their medical bills. When patients face confusing billing systems or lack flexibility, they are more likely to forget about their balance or abandon the payment process altogether.
Manual payment systems create unnecessary friction for patients. Without automated reminders, flexible payment options or user-friendly portals, even well-intentioned patients can fall behind. Offering digital-first payment solutions like text-to-pay, online payment portals and installment plans can improve both payment speed and patient satisfaction.
By providing payment flexibility, Arkansas healthcare providers can increase revenue while improving patient loyalty. For example, Forte’s Engage payments platform enables providers to offer patient-centric options, such as installment payments and auto-pay, all while reducing manual effort and administrative overhead.
Compliance and Security Risks of Manual Payment Processing
For healthcare organizations, compliance is non-negotiable. Manual payment systems create vulnerabilities in both security and regulatory compliance. Every time a staff member manually enters a patient’s credit card information or stores payment details in unsecured systems, they increase the risk of a breach or a violation of healthcare regulations.
In Arkansas, healthcare providers are already required to comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards to protect patient data. But when payment systems are involved, PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance must also be considered. Unfortunately, manual processes often fail to meet both requirements.
According to Verizon’s 2024 Payment Security Report, only 43% of organizations were fully PCI-compliant during their last assessment. Non-compliance can lead to costly fines, damage to your reputation and a loss of patient trust.
Forte’s healthcare payment platform is PCI-compliant by design, ensuring that payment information is encrypted, tokenized and never stored locally. With features like user-level permissions, audit trails and secure portals, we help you maintain compliance and safeguard patient data removing the payment-related considerations from your scope of HIPAA regulations and rules.
The Revenue Leakage You Can’t See: Delays, Denials and Write-Offs
Revenue loss often happens slowly and silently, through missed payments, delayed follow-ups and accounts that slip into write-off territory. Manual payment systems are a major contributor to this revenue leakage.
When healthcare staff are managing payments across different systems or relying on spreadsheets to track balances, it’s easy for critical steps to be missed—such as collecting payment at the time of service, sending reminders or following up on overdue accounts.
These missed steps quickly compound into larger issues. A 2023 HFMA report noted that practices now collect only 55% of patient balances after a visit—down from 70% a decade ago. The decline in collections is attributed to outdated billing systems that don’t align with modern patient expectations or behaviors.
By automating your payment workflows, you can reduce the number of balances that fall through the cracks, accelerate collections and minimize administrative rework. Forte’s unified payments platform provides real-time reporting, automated reminders and flexible payment options—all designed to boost collections without adding complexity.
Modernize Your Payment Workflow with Forte
The hidden costs of manual payment processing go beyond inefficiency—they represent what your practice could be gaining by modernizing. With Forte’s healthcare payment solutions, you can streamline your revenue operations while ensuring flexibility, security and compliance.
Forte’s platform helps healthcare providers:
- Maintain HIPAA compliance via a comprehensive set of policies, procedures and controls that ensure data security.
- Offer flexible installment plans to help patients manage out-of-pocket costs.
- Automate recurring billing and Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments to reduce administrative workload.
- Strengthen compliance with PCI DSS-compliant tools that encrypt payment data.
- Integrate seamlessly with your existing billing systems to minimize disruptions and errors.
With features like 99.99% uptime, deep industry experience and white-glove support, Forte ensures a smooth transition to a modern, efficient payment solution.
Don’t let outdated payment systems hold your practice back. Contact CSG Forte today to schedule a demo and learn how we can help you reduce costs, improve patient satisfaction and streamline your payment operations.