What is Cashless Appointments?
Cashless Appointments is a feature that lets providers collect the consultation fees online at the time of appointment booking. All Prime providers can accept Cashless payments from the patients for their appointments on www.practo.com
What are the benefits of Cashless Appointments?
- Reduces the chances of patient no-shows and cancellations by up to 90% compared to non-cashless appointments.
- Offers simple, hassle-free payment and booking experience to patients.
- Provides a secure payment option with the amount directly being credited to the bank account.
- Offers a contactless experience for payments.
How can I enable Cashless Appointments?
Here is a step by step guide:
- Click on this link and login
- Accept Terms & Conditions & click on ‘Continue’
- Enter Bank & PAN details. At this step, ₹ 1 will be credited to your account after details have been submitted. This is to ensure that all your future settlements with Practo are seamless.
- Enable the required doctors on Cashless.
- Once done, download the QR code and place it in the reception or waiting area of your clinic or hospital. Once a patient walks in, instruct them to scan the QR code or do a self-check-in.
How do I identify if the appointment booked is Cashless?
You can track and identify your checked-in Cashless Appointments on the calendar by hovering over appointments. We also send the details on the appointment confirmation email and SMS with a mention that it’s a Prepaid appointment.
How will patients use this?
For Cashless Appointments, we inform the patient via On Screen messages, SMS, Email and WhatsApp channel to scan the QR code at the clinic/hospital. When the patient walks into the clinic/hospital and informs that they have booked a Cashless appointment, they are expected to scan the QR code via Practo Health app or they can also do a Self Check-in via app or m-web. The check-in by the patient for Cashless Appointments is must for the payments to be processed in your account.
What if the QR code is not scanned and the patient visits the practice?
In case the patient doesn’t scan the QR code within 72 hours from the appointment date and time, the system will automatically mark that appointment as a no-show and a cancellation fee of ₹50 will be credited to your account. The rest of the amount will be credited back to the patient’s account.
How do I identify if the QR code is successfully scanned by the patient?
Upon successful QR code scanning, we mark the appointment on Ray calendar as ‘Checked-in’ which can be viewed by the provider on the Ray Calendar on D-web or Practo Pro app.
We also send an SMS and WhatsApp message to the provider upon successful check-in by the patients. Here is a sample message:
Hi, Mayank Paharia has successfully checked-in for the Cashless Appointment (ID: 91809080) booked for April 12, 2021 at 6:00 PM with Dr. Ram Kumar at Lal Eye Clinic, JP Nagar, Bangalore. The consultation fee paid by the patient will be credited to the bank account within 4-5 business days.
Please Note: To get WhatsApp messages, it is required to give consent. In case you have not given the consent, please click here to do the same.
How much time does it take for the payments to get settled?
The payment settlement for the Cashless Appointments is done within 7 business days from the appointment date. To check the payments status, you can check the Earnings Dashboard on the Practo Pro app & can also download the report from D-web.
Here are the steps to get the settlement report:
- Go to your Prime Dashboard and select the Prime campaign.
- Click on Export Report (top left).
- Select Prime PrePaid Data and click on Export.
- The report will be sent to the email address of the login used.
- Download the CSV file in the email and check the last 6 columns in the report.
I lost the QR code, how do I get another one?
Not to worry, the practice owner can download the QR Code from their login. Please follow these steps:
- Login into your account and go to Profile.
- Click on ‘Cashless Settings’ and select the Practice
- Click on ‘Download QR’
Do I have an option to change cancellation charges for Cashless Appointments?
No. The cancellation charges for cancellation and no-show will remain as ₹50 only.
Where can I check completed and pending settlements?
To check the payments status, you can check the earnings dashboard on the Practo Pro app & can also download the report from D-web.
Here are the steps to get the settlement report:
- Go to your Prime Dashboard and select the Prime campaign.
- Click on Export Report (top left).
- Select Prime PrePaid Data and click on Export.
- The report will be sent to the email address of the login used.
- Download the CSV file in the email and check the last 6 columns in the report.
Is it mandatory to enable the Cashless?
If you are a user of a Practo Prime product then enabling Cashless is mandatory. Upon disabling Cashless, Practo Prime campaign shall be paused until cashless is re-enabled.
What is the Cancellation and No-Show policy for Cashless Appointments?
Cancellation Policy:
- Cancellation by Patient before 2 hours of appointment – Full refund of consultation fee paid online to the patient .
- Cancellation by patient within 2 hours of appointment – ₹50 is transferred to the clinic/hospital bank account. (patient is penalised with late cancellation – rest of the amount gets refunded to patient)
- If the appointment gets cancelled by the doctor – full refund of paid consultation fee to the patient.
No Show Policy:
- If a patient is unable to scan the QR Code or doesn’t check in at the clinic for 72 hours from the appointment date and time, the system will automatically mark that appointment as Patient No Show and the doctor will get ₹50 from the consultation fee and the rest of the amount will be refunded back to the patient.
Can I make payment mandatory for the appointments booked via Practo?
No. For an improved patient experience, we do not allow mandatory cashless option as of now.
Do I need to pay anything extra to use Cashless Appointments?
No. There are no charges to use Cashless Appointments and it will only help you in providing better experience to patients.
Will the wallet deduction continue for connections post activating Cashless Appointments?
Prime wallet is independent of Cashless. For Cashless Appointments, the patient pays the consultation fee online at the time of appointment booking which is then transferred to the provider. Please note that the fee paid is only the consultation fee as displayed by you.
What if the billing amount is more than the consultation fee due to some tests, etc?
For Cashless Appointments, the patient pays the consultation fee online at the time of appointment booking which is then transferred to the provider. Charges for any other services like tests/procedures, etc must be collected directly from the patient. For e.g – If the consultation fee is ₹500, Diagnostic tests – ₹1000 and treatment/procedure – ₹1500, Practo will only pay ₹500 through Cashless Appointments and the balance amount of ₹2500 must be collected from the patient.
What do I do if the patient is unable to scan the QR code due to the Practo App issue?
- Doctors should ask the patient to click on the “Self-check-in” button if the QR code scan is not working for some reason.
- If 1 doesn’t work, Doctor can ask the patient to pay at the clinic and ask the patient to share the bill on Practo support and Practo will refund the patient.
- Doctors can ask patients to click/tap on the “Self-check-in” button from outside the clinic or later at home. Here any follow-up in case required has to be done by the doctor’s end. If the patient does not “check-in” the amount will be auto refunded to the patient and the doctor will only get ₹50 as per the policy.
What do I do if the patient refuses to scan the QR Code?
This should ideally not happen as we communicate about this to the patient in the entire booking journey and the same is also mentioned in the SMS, Email, WhatsApp communication which goes to the patient. In a rare such event, the Doctor/Receptionist should guide the patient to Scan the QR code by referring to these communications sent by Practo post appointment booking.
Can I Cancel the Cashless Appointments?
Yes. In case of doctors unavailability due to any reason, we appreciate doctors to cancel or reschedule the appointments in advance. Here are the steps to cancel an appointment.
Can I Reschedule the Cashless Appointments?
Yes. Here are the steps to reschedule an appointment.
The patient called me and asked to reschedule the appointment. How can I do that?
The patients always have an option to reschedule the appointment themselves. In an event where the patient reaches out to you to reschedule an appointment, you can also reschedule it in your Ray or Qikwell calendar. Here are the steps to reschedule an appointment.
Please note in such cases it is required that you reschedule the appointment in your Ray or Qikwell calendar so that the system understands the new appointment time and does not impact the consultation fee settlement considering the QR code not scanned based on the old appointment time.
What do I do if I have a medical emergency and I am not available for the consultation?
- You can either Cancel the appointment or Reschedule it. The steps are documented above.
- Upon cancellation of the appointment by the doctor, full refund of the paid consultation fee is done to the patient.
- If the appointment is Rescheduled in your Ray or Qikwell calendar, and the QR code is scanned within 72 hours of the new appointment time the consultation fee will be transferred to the provider.