A spreadsheet of plans nobody quite trusts
Your clinic offers aftercare plans: an annual review, cleaning, consumables and repairs handling for a monthly fee. Some patients also spread the cost of their aids. At first, a spreadsheet tracked who was on what. Now there are several plan types, some legacy prices, payments collected by Direct Debit, card and standing order, and a list of failures the bank sends each month that someone is supposed to check.
At the desk, a patient asks for free batteries. Are they on a plan? Is it paid up? The receptionist does not know, so gives them anyway.
Why plan admin drifts
- Plan terms are held in the spreadsheet, payments in the bank or Direct Debit portal, and visits in the practice system.
- Failed payments arrive as a report or email that is not linked to the patient.
- Nobody contacts patients whose payments fail, so plans lapse without anyone deciding.
- Staff at the desk cannot check entitlements quickly.
- Price changes and plan upgrades are applied by hand, one patient at a time.
- Patients who die or move into care are not always cancelled, which causes distressing letters.
The cost of plans that are not managed
Unpaid plans still receiving services. Paid-up patients not getting the reviews they are entitled to. Failed payments that could have been fixed with a quick message becoming cancellations. And a practice manager who cannot say how many active, paying plans the clinic has, which makes it hard to plan.
| Plan event | What happens now | What the system does |
|---|---|---|
| New plan | Row added to spreadsheet | Plan record and mandate set up together |
| Payment fails | Noticed late or not at all | Patient contacted, desk alerted, retry scheduled |
| Desk asks about entitlement | Guess | Entitlement shown on the patient screen |
| Price change | Edited one by one | Applied by plan type with notice to patients |
| Patient dies or moves to care | Missed | Plan paused or cancelled with care, no automatic chasing |
How we build plan management
- Each plan type is defined once: what it includes, price, payment frequency and how many of each service is included.
- When a patient joins, the plan record is created and a Direct Debit mandate is set up through a provider such as GoCardless or Stripe, from a link the patient can complete at the desk or at home.
- Payments and failures come back from the provider automatically and update the plan record.
- When a payment fails, the patient receives a polite message with a way to update details, a retry is scheduled, and the plan is flagged at the desk.
- The patient screen shows the plan status and what they are entitled to this year, so the desk can answer in seconds.
- Reviews included in the plan feed into your recall schedule, so paying patients are invited.
- A sensitive-circumstances flag stops automatic messages for patients who have died or moved into care, and routes the account to a named person.
- A monthly summary shows active plans, lapsed plans, failures and income, and can be pushed to Xero or your accounts package.
If you offer finance for the aids themselves through a regulated finance provider, the application stays with that provider. We record the agreement reference and status against the patient, but we do not give or arrange credit.
What the practice manager sees
One list of plans that matches the money in the bank. Failed payments are handled the day they happen. Staff know who is entitled to what. Price changes are applied properly. Families dealing with a bereavement are not sent automated chasers. And the clinic can see how its plan base is growing or shrinking.
Do your plans need this?
- Aftercare plans are tracked in a spreadsheet.
- Failed Direct Debit reports are not checked every month.
- Desk staff cannot see whether a patient's plan is paid up.
- Patients have been sent letters after they died.
- You could not say today how many active, paying plans you have.