The one-third rate is up from 28 percent of physicians who reported not accepting credit cards last year.
According to data from a survey conducted by SK&A Information services, the credit card acceptance rate differed according to specialty and seemed to be correlated to the specialty’s dependence on patient self-pay and the age of its patient base. For example, plastic surgery had a 91 percent credit card acceptance rate, whereas pathology had a 21 percent acceptance rate.
Although the survey didn’t ask the 202,650 physician offices surveyed why they weren’t accepting credit cards, an SK&A spokesperson said in the report that increasing transaction fees, around 3-4 percent from every payment, could be a main reason.
However, some physicians note that paying a transaction fee is more desirable than dealing with bounced checks or issuing paper statements, according to the report.
Read the AMNews report on the declining number of physicians accepting credit cards.
