You’ve made a wise decision by offering tummy tucks at your plastic surgery center. First, you’re helping people live a higher quality of life. A tummy tuck, or abdominoplasty, tightens the stomach muscles, removes belly hang and excess skin, and eliminates abdominal creases. This not only helps patients achieve a flatter, more toned stomach, but also offers medical benefits, including improved posture and decreased back pain. Second, the tummy tuck industry is growing fast. According to market research, the body fat reduction market has reached nearly $8.5 billion. Growth rates are expected to average 12.32% through 2025. By offering tummy tucks at your plastic surgery clinic, you can capitalize on this growing demand. Now, the question is: How are your patients paying for their abdominoplasty procedure? Chances are, since tummy tucks are often elective, clients are paying out of pocket. This may not seem like something you need to worry about, but if you don’t have the proper plastic surgery payment plan for your patient, you could be losing revenue. After all, credit card payments mean your practice has to pay fees, which can get upwards of 4%! This is why the wrong plastic surgery payment plan could decrease profits by 10% or more at your tummy tuck center. You can’t allow that!In this article, we’ll show you , such as breast augmentations and nose jobs.
Think about all you’ve invested in becoming a plastic surgeon. You’ve done 10-plus years of training and education. You’ve completed a bachelor’s degree and a four-year doctor’s degree, as well as obtained a license and did a residency. You probably even did a fellowship in a subspecialty, such as aesthetic surgery. And on top of all that, you had to get board certification from an organization like the American Board of Medical Specialties. All that education and training cost you a lot of time, money, and energy. The average medical student has more than $201,000 in debt upon entering the profession, according to a NerdWallet study. In addition to your educational investment, you’ve spent money to start your plastic surgery center. On average, doctors spend at least $100,000 to open their surgical practice. Then, you have ongoing costs, including equipment, labor, rent, consultancy fees, marketing and advertising, and insurance. Expenses can run well into six figures per year, even for small practices. Needless to say, you’ve invested a lot to get here. Why waste it by having the wrong plastic surgery payment plan? Now, you may be asking: How are you offering the wrong plastic surgery payment plan? It begins with how your clients pay. If they’re using a credit card to cover their bill, it’s probably causing your profits to drop well more than 10%. Yes, credit card processing fees can eat into your income that much.Have your attention now?
Here are the average credit card processing fees by network:
So, you could pay somewhere between 1.3% and 3.4% per transaction to payment networks like Visa and Discover. In addition to the network fee, know that each credit card transaction involves other types of fees, including:
Altogether, it’s possible you pay an average of 3.5% in credit card transaction fees when a client makes a payment on their plastic surgery payment plan. Now, let’s break down how much this could cost you over a year.
First, let’s consider the average tummy tuck procedure cost. A tummy tuck costs an average of $6,092, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Given the high cost, many of your clients may choose to pay with a credit card, which leaves a good portion of your revenue subject to transaction fees. Second, let’s consider your profits. Say you earn an average net margin of 20%. That means you earn $1,218.40 per tummy tuck procedure. If you do 100 tummy tucks per year, that equates to $609,200 in revenue and $121,840 in income from that procedure. That’s solid, but you could be doing much better. To pay for their tummy tucks, the vast majority of your clients have to pay out of pocket (as tummy tucks are mostly elective). And it’s likely more than half of your clients set up a plastic surgery payment plan with recurring credit card payments. Others may clear the bill all at once by swiping their credit card. Let’s do some math to show how much you lose to credit card processing fees:
That’s way too much to be handing over in fees. What if you could eliminate credit card processing fees? You could increase your tummy tuck profits by $13,859, from $121,840 to $135,699. That’s an increase of 11.4%! Now, the question is: How do you get rid of credit card processing fees?
Here’s the good news: You can get free credit card processing on client payments for abdominoplasty procedures. You don’t need some sort of special plastic surgery payment plan. You just need the right merchant service provider and a credit surcharge program.Follow these steps:
Look for a reputable MSP that has low fees, offers high-quality equipment and software, provides good customer service, and has experience with medical credit card processing. Make sure they can provide seamless transactions with online payments, virtual terminal credit card processing, mobile credit card processing, and more. By finding the best payment provider, you ensure you don’t pay any more credit card fees than you must when your customer makes a payment for their plastic surgery payment plan. Quick tip: Negotiate the MSP markup. We’ve seen plastic surgery clinics get 5-10% off the markup, which can save hundreds per year.
Having the best MSP only gets fees lower. It doesn’t eliminate credit card fees altogether for plastic surgery payment plans. This is why you need a credit surcharge program.100% legally compliant, credit surcharge programs use fair, transparent pricing to give clients a choice: Pay with a credit card, and you’ll pay 3.5% more; or, pay with a debit card or cash, and you’ll avoid the 3.5% fee.This way, your tummy tuck clients can choose the convenience of paying with a credit card or save money by paying with cash or debit (note: with debit payments, you pay a 1% fee to $0.25). This ensures the client covers the credit card transaction fees and that your bottom line isn’t affected. Those fees are either paid by your client or avoided altogether with a cash payment. In this sense, with the best MSP and a credit surcharge program, you can take home 100% of your tummy tuck revenue. Each year, that will increase your profits by more than 10%.
At Nadapayments, we help plastic surgeons get free credit card processing at their practices through our smart surcharge program. Our credit surcharge program works with most credit card installment plans and works in-person and online. Contact us today at +1 (929) 293-1800 or click the link below to get started and finally say goodbye to credit card processing fees for good.
