5 Ways Straight Through Processing Fixes Healthcare Cash Flow Fast
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When margins are thin and more revenue depends on patient responsibility, you can’t afford to wait 60–90 days for cash that’s already been approved.
CSG Forte’s Straight Through Processing (STP) turns mailed virtual cards and manual keying into next-day deposits with clean remittance data—without ripping out your EHR or practice management systems.
Here are 5 key points healthcare finance leaders need to know.
1. Traditional virtual card workflows are “digital” in name only
Payers mail virtual card letters to your practice or lockbox.
Staff open envelopes, key card numbers into terminals, and chase remits across systems.
Deposits and reconciliation can lag weeks or months behind approval.
2. Your payer mix may look familiar on paper, but the cash story has changed
High-deductible plans shift more of each encounter to the patient.
Patient-owed balances are harder to predict, harder to collect, and more likely to be written off.
That makes every predictable insurer dollar more important.
3. Mail-based virtual card workflows eat up time you don’t have
Opening and sorting envelopes.
Keying card numbers into terminals and systems.
Manually matching deposits and remittances days or weeks later.
4. Every mailed card is another exposure point
Intercepted letters and stolen card details.
Card testing fraud on exposed numbers.
Misapplied or lost payments that never reach your operating account.
5. Many “automation” initiatives stall because
They require invasive changes to core systems.
Payers can’t keep their existing adjudication processes and virtual card models.
Modern healthcare organizations can’t leave cash flow to chance
Not with:
Thin margins and uneven recovery.
Rising patient responsibility and falling collection rates.
Tight labor markets in revenue cycle and billing.
Existing HR, practice management, and RCM systems aren’t compatible.
That’s where Straight Through Processing comes in.
Behind the scenes, CSG Forte STP:
Turns both insurer reimbursements and payer-portal patient payments into next-day deposits, with each virtual card routed electronically, processed, and posted with remittance data already attached.
Consolidates these flows on a single healthcare-ready payments platform so your teams stop opening envelopes and keying card numbers; instead, they can work from clean, centralized data for posting, reconciliation, and reporting.
Keeps card data inside encrypted, access-controlled systems with HIPAA-, PCI DSS- and HITRUST-aligned controls like role-based access, MFA and IP whitelisting, shrinking your PCI footprint while strengthening audit trails.
Delivers faster, more predictable cash, less fraud and loss exposure, and a modernized revenue cycle you can scale without ripping and replacing your core systems.
If you’re ready to accelerate every predictable dollar while protecting your mission, it’s time to bring STP into your healthcare payment workflows.
Nonprofit Payments Can’t Be a Black Box: Why Owning Your Merchant Account Matters
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Earlier this month, the nonprofit sector got a painful reminder that “set it and forget it” donation infrastructure can quickly become a single point of failure.
Coverage from sources like Nonprofit News Feed and restructuring analysts chronicled what happened at Flipcause: Delayed remittances to nonprofits, a cease-and-desist order from the California Department of Justice, its payment processor’s termination of services and freeze of roughly $2.2 million in funds, and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in Delaware with tens of millions in donations owed to thousands of nonprofits.
In those accounts, the sole payment processor is at the center of the dispute, holding a commingled pot that included both Flipcause’s operating funds and donor money earmarked for nonprofits. When that pooled account was frozen, donor dollars were effectively locked inside a processor–platform dispute, and organizations that thought they were “just using a fundraising tool” suddenly found themselves in a bankruptcy case.
The underlying pattern matters more than any single name. In many platform-centric models:
The platform, not the nonprofit, is the merchant of record—often through a single large processor.
Donor funds are pooled under the platform’s merchant ID, then remitted downstream on the platform’s schedule.
Payout timing and holds are governed by the platform’s processor and risk policies, not the nonprofit’s.
When that platform experiences processor issues, regulatory action, or an operational failure, thousands of organizations just like yours can feel the shock at once—often with little warning.
Whatever the ultimate outcomes in court in nonprofit funds mismanagement and potential fraud cases like the one Flipcause is the subject of, the operational lesson is immediate: if your fundraising flow depends on someone else’s rails, you’re exposed to payout interruptions, policy changes, processor actions, and compliance shocks you don’t control.
This blog outlines a practical framework describing why nonprofits should own their merchant account. It’s assurance that donor gifts and monthly contributions keep moving even when the landscape shifts.
When “convenient” becomes “vulnerable”
Nonprofits run on trust—and cash flow. If donations slow down, programs pause. If gifts are declined or mishandled, supporters don’t just abandon a transaction; they lose confidence in the organization’s ability to steward their financial support.
But many donation stacks were built for speed, not resilience, and that leaves nonprofits vulnerable to several common risks.
Funds held outside your control: When a third party sits between the supporter and your organization, gifts can sit in an account you don’t own. This creates “float” risk, delayed payouts, and opaque timing for when dollars actually hit your bank.
Single points of failure: If a platform’s payment processor cuts ties, tightens risk thresholds, or places holds, your donation flow can be disrupted overnight. In the Flipcause situation, public reporting references impacts tied to processor actions—including the payment processor’s decision to terminate services and freeze funds. This is a vivid illustration of how quickly a platform–processor relationship can cascade into missed payouts for nonprofits.
Compliance expectations are tightening: New rules—such as expanded monitoring requirements for automated clearing house (ACH) or eCheck fraud and card-network programs that scrutinize excessive fraud and disputes—raise the bar on how platforms and merchants manage payment risk. What used to count as “commercially reasonable” controls are no longer enough as regulators and networks formalize monitoring and enforcement.
Fraud is accelerating and industrialized: Industry research projects cumulative online payment fraud losses in the tens of billions each year. A large majority of organizations already report attempted or actual payments fraud, and attackers are now using automation and AI to test cards, take over accounts, abuse refunds, and probe weak defenses at scale.
The takeaway: if you can’t see and control the payment lifecycle end to end, you’re playing defense with one hand tied behind your back. “Convenient” becomes “vulnerable” when a single third party controls both your merchant identity and your fraud posture.
Resilience, predictability, and donor confidence
For nonprofits, successful results aren’t gained simply by reducing fraud losses. Success lives in the operational outcomes that keep your mission funded and your supporters engaged. When you combine ownership of your merchant account with modern fraud protection, you’re aiming at outcomes like:
More predictable cash flow: Fewer surprise holds, fewer payout mysteries, and fewer lastminute scrambles to reconcile what cleared. When failure scenarios do occur—nonsufficient fund returns, expired cards, or bank issues—you can layer in services such as automated recovery and card-on-file updating to reduce involuntary churn and keep recurring gifts on track.
Better donor experience: Fewer unnecessary declines, fewer confusing error messages, and donation flows that feel fast, mobile-friendly, and trustworthy. Supporters can give using the methods they prefer—cards, ACH/eCheck, digital wallets, or recurring monthly gifts—without running a gauntlet of clumsy fraud checks.
Stronger governance: Clearer accountability for payment operations, reporting, and oversight. As regulations and platform rules tighten, you can show boards, auditors, and major donors that you understand where money flows, how it’s protected, and how quickly issues are identified and escalated.
Protection that scales: As donor volumes grow and campaigns expand, your payment platform should support high-volume, low-latency monitoring with always-adapting models and configurable thresholds. That means your fraud defenses can keep pace as your supporter base and fundraising channels grow—without requiring a proportional increase in manual review work.
The nonprofit sector doesn’t need more cautionary tales to prove the point. The urgency is already here: fraud is rising, regulation is tightening, and donation interruptions tend to hit at the worst possible time.
Rethinking the foundation, not just the form
At a glance, donation pages and buttons may all look similar. The critical difference lies underneath:
Who is the merchant of record? Is it you or a third-party platform?
Where do funds actually sit between authorization and settlement?
Who is responsible for fraud monitoring, compliance, and payout decisions?
How quickly can you adapt if a processor, platform, or bank changes course?
If your fundraising platform can’t give you clear answers on ownership, transparency, and modern fraud defense—or if the answers leave you exposed—it’s time to rethink the foundation, not just the form.
That doesn’t have to mean abandoning the tools your team loves. It does mean adopting a payments architecture where your organization owns the merchant account, has end-to-end visibility into the payment lifecycle, and can layer in AI-powered fraud protection that fits your risk posture and mission.
If you want to pressure-test your current setup, CSG Forte can help you:
Map where donations and monthly gifts actually travel today.
Identify single points of failure in payout flows and processor relationships.
Evaluate your fraud controls across ACH, card, and digital channels.
Talk with CSG Forte about setting up a dedicated merchant account for your nonprofit to protect supporter gifts, strengthen your cash flow, and keep your mission moving, even when the landscape is changing around you.
How to Prevent Fraud in Insurance Payment Portals
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Key Takeaways
Insurance payment portals face concentrated fraud risk across account takeover, card testing, ACH abuse, and refund schemes—and each requires tailored controls.
The most effective defenses are layered across login, payment, and back-office operations, combining strong authentication, ACH account validation, tuned velocity rules, and clear refund policies.
Coordinating fraud prevention with customer service, billing, and vendors turns controls into a better overall policyholder experience—not just more friction.
Insurance leaders have spent the last few years modernizing digital payments. Many have added portals, text-to-pay, IVR, and agent-assisted options that make it easier for policyholders to pay premiums and manage accounts online.
But as those experiences improve, fraudsters follow. And bad actors don’t just care about card numbers; they care about long-lived accounts they can take over, automated clearing house (ACH) rails they can exploit with weak validation, and refund flows they can twist into fast cash.
Ignoring portal fraud isn’t just a security problem. In insurance, it’s a retention, revenue, and coverage problem:
A compromised portal account can lead to unauthorized changes that confuse policyholders and drive complaints.
Fraudulent or disputed payments can trigger chargebacks, operational cleanup, and regulatory scrutiny.
Overaggressive rules can block good customers or make it harder to keep legitimate premiums flowing.
The path forward is not a single “magic” tool. It’s a layered, pragmatic defense—tuned for how card, ACH, and refund flows actually work in insurance.
The fraud threats targeting insurance payment portals
Fraud that’s infiltrating insurance portals tends to fall into a few patterns. Common attack types include:
Credential stuffing and account takeover (ATO): Attackers use lists of stolen usernames/passwords to force their way into payment portals where policyholders reuse credentials. Once in, they can:
Change contact details or payment methods
Add fraudulent cards or bank accounts
Make unauthorized onetime or recurring payments (sometimes to test stolen cards)
Card testing and bot abuse: Fraudsters run scripts that fire many small card authorizations through your portal to see which stolen numbers are still live. Insurance portals are particularly attractive because:
They often don’t look like “checkout” to issuers, so test transactions may slip through.
Premium amounts can be edited, making micro-tests easy.
First-party (“friendly”) fraud and dispute abuse: A real policyholder (or someone close to them) pays, then later disputes the charge with their bank—claiming it was unauthorized, or that coverage wasn’t what they expected. In insurance, this can show up around:
New policies or midterm endorsements
Large lumpsum payments or catchup premiums
Premiums paid just before a claim event
Refund and overpayment schemes: Fraudsters overpay with stolen cards or compromised bank accounts, then pressure staff to “fix” the mistake by refunding to a different destination (e.g., a different card, wire, or wallet).
Abuse of saved payment methods and stored credentials: Long tenured accounts often hold multiple cards or bank details. Without good controls, those stored methods can be:
Used by unauthorized users in the household
Exploited in ATO incidents
Left to quietly fail and trigger downstream churn
The risk isn’t just financial loss. It’s chargeback ratios, scheme reputational scores, ACH return rates, and rising operational load for your billing and CS teams.
How fraud shows up in card, ACH, and refund flows
Fraud doesn’t look the same on every rail. You need different signals and controls for each.
Card flows: CNP fraud, card testing, and chargebacks
Card rails are convenient and familiar—but they’re also the most targeted for card-not-present (CNP) fraud.
How it shows up:
Spikes in low-value, rapid-fire authorizations (classic card testing).
Unusual card use patterns for a single policyholder: multiple cards added in a short period, or cards from high-risk regions.
Chargebacks where the customer claims nonrecognition, nonreceipt, or duplicate billing (often friendly fraud).
Maintain dispute playbooks with clear descriptors, documentation, and evidence packs to contest fraudulent or abusive chargebacks.
ACH flows: returns, NSF loops, and validation gaps
ACH is critical for large and recurring premiums because bank accounts change far less often than cards and have lower decline rates. But ACH introduces its own fraud and risk profile.
How it shows up:
Repeated NSF returns, often re-debiting without a rational strategy.
Unauthorized debits when a fraudster used someone else’s account or the policyholder disputes after the fact.
Fake or mistyped account/routing data used to “float” coverage or delay true payment.
Refund and credit flows: policy, people, and process risk
Refund flows are an overlooked fraud vector. In insurance, you’re refunding:
Overpayments and duplicate premiums
Canceled policies and endorsements
Claims overpayments or corrections
Abuse patterns include:
Overpayment with a stolen instrument, then a demand for an urgent refund via a different, irreversible rail (wire, wallet, gift card).
Engineered customer service or billing reports to bypass normal refund routes (“my card is closed; just send it to this account instead”).
Building a layered defense for portals and accounts
Most insurance teams already have some controls in place. The goal of a layered defense is to connect and tune them: stop the obvious bad, step-up protections against the suspicious, and keep things smooth for good customers. Think in three layers: front door, journey, and back office.
1. Front door: strong, sensible access control
Focus: prevent ATO and automated abuse without locking out real policyholders.
Key moves:
Multifactor authentication (MFA) or onetime passwords for:
New device logins
Sensitive actions (adding/changing payment methods, bank accounts, addresses)
High-risk segments (e.g., high premium policies, recent fraud activity)
Rate limiting and bot controls on login and payment endpoints:
Throttle repeated failed logins per IP/device
Add CAPTCHA only when risk signals are elevated, not on every session
Device and behavior signals:
Flag new devices, impossible travel (logins from distant geos in short windows), and odd hour activity for risk-based challenges rather than outright blocks.
2. In-journey: tuned controls at key payment and profile steps
Focus: treat high-risk steps differently from routine interactions.
High-impact points:
Account creation and profile changes
Validate email and mobile; confirm changes via out-of-band notifications.
Delay or add review for changes that pair with high-risk events (e.g., address change + bank change + large refund request) [needs internal validation].
Payment method add/update
Always apply AVS/CVV for new cards; require MFA for adding or replacing stored instruments.
For ACH, follow Nacha guidance and validate accounts at first use or on change, not after the first failed debit.
Premium payments
Apply risk-based scoring: low-amount, low-risk recurring payments can flow with minimal friction; unusual one-off high-value payments might trigger additional checks.
Limit what customers can self-initiate vs. what requires agent review.
If you allow self-service refund requests, bind them to original funding sources and enforce caps per period.
3. Back office: monitoring, playbooks, and cross-team coordination
Focus: treat fraud management as an operational discipline, not one-off firefighting.
Core elements:
Clear metrics and dashboards
High-performing organizations track:
Decline and failure rates (card and ACH)
Chargebacks by reason code
ACH return rates and reasons
ATO incidents and password reset volumes
Refund volume and patterns over time
Fraud spike playbooks
Use a predefined incident runbook (aligned to CSG’s broader “fraud spike” guidance) that covers:
Detection and triage thresholds
Short-term rule/rate-limit changes
Communication flows to CX, legal, and compliance
Governance and ownership
Ensure fraud, payments, security, billing, and CS know:
Who owns portal risk decisions
How exceptions are handled
When to involve vendors or card networks
A pragmatic way forward
You don’t have to solve every portal risk this quarter. But you do need a plan.
A realistic sequence for most insurance teams:
Turn on and tune what you already have:
AVS/CVV enforcement
Basic velocity controls
MFA at least for high-risk actions
Close obvious gaps in ACH validation and refund policies:
Align to Nacha’s WEB debit account validation expectations for new/changed accounts.
Make “refund to original method” your default.
Instrument your metrics:
If you can’t see declines, returns, ATO indicators, and refund patterns in one place, fix that. Everything else depends on it.
Layer in smarter tools where warranted:
Risk-based monitoring, device intelligence, or specialized fraud platforms when volume, loss, and complexity justify it.
Done well, a layered approach lets trusted policyholders glide through their payment and portal experiences—while fraudsters find your doors locked, your windows latched, and your team ready when they test the walls.
Ready to strengthen your insurance portal against payment fraud? Take the next step: schedule a personalized risk assessment with our experts to start building your layered defense today.
What are the most common fraud threats to insurance payment portals?
Insurance portals are typically targeted by credential stuffing and account takeover attacks, card testing bots, first-party dispute abuse, and refund/overpayment scams that try to reroute funds to different destinations.
How does ACH fraud differ from card fraud in an insurance context?
ACH fraud often appears as unauthorized debits, repeated NSF returns, or use of invalid account details, while card fraud is more likely to involve card-not-present misuse and card testing. Nacha’s WEB debit rules now explicitly require ACH originators to include account validation as part of their fraud detection systems for online debits.
What is Nacha’s expectation for WEB debit fraud detection and account validation?
Nacha requires ACH originators of WEB debit entries to use a “commercially reasonable fraudulent transaction detection system” that includes account validation at a minimum for the first use of an account number and for any subsequent changes, to confirm the account is open and able to receive ACH entries.
How can insurers prevent over-blocking good customers while fighting fraud?
Rather than blanket rules, insurers should use risk-based controls: apply MFA and extra checks for higher-risk actions or unusual patterns, allow low-risk recurring payments to flow with minimal friction, and give CS visibility and scripts to quickly resolve false positives without undermining controls.
Where do CSG Forte/CSG solutions help with insurance portal fraud?
CSG Forte BillPay centralizes card and ACH payments across web, mobile, IVR, text-to-pay, and in-person channels with PCI-compliant hosted forms, tokenization, Account Updater, and reporting that support lower decline and fraud rates, while CSG’s broader security and journey tools help orchestrate reminders, recovery, and risk-aware experiences.
Press Release: CSG Helps Businesses Cut Fraud Losses by up to 70% with CSG PaymentsProtection.ai
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AI-powered fraud detection solution enables near-real-time, cross-channel transaction monitoring to stop fraud without slowing legitimate payments.
Embedded Payments for Fintechs: Scale, Compliance, & Control
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Key Takeaways
Embedded payments are becoming the default expectation for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and financial technology (fintech) platforms, but they also expand your responsibilities for risk and compliance.
Choosing between payment aggregator, Payment Facilitation-as-a-Service (PFaaS), and Registered Payment Facilitation models isn’t just about APIs; it’s about control, economics, and risk appetite.
If you are building a fintech platform, you’re under pressure from both sides.
Your customers expect to onboard, accept, and reconcile payments without ever leaving your product. At the same time, regulators, sponsor banks, and networks expect clear answers about who is moving money through your platform, how you monitor risk, and what happens when something looks wrong.
Handle this well, and embedded payments could become one of your biggest growth levers. Get it wrong, and you inherit operational headaches, compliance exposure, and unhappy customers.
Embedded payments weave payment capabilities directly into your platform so users can pay—or get paid—without being redirected to a third‑party checkout or portal. Instead of spinning up a separate merchant account and logging into a different gateway, your customers sign up, accept payments, and see their reporting without leaving your page.
Embedded payments are one part of “embedded finance,” where non‑financial companies offer services like payments, lending, or insurance in their own experiences without holding every underlying license themselves.
The appeal is clear:
Less friction for users: People complete financial tasks in the same digital journeys they already use, rather than jumping to bank sites or generic payment pages.
More revenue for platforms: By participating in payment economics instead of just referring merchants out, platforms can unlock new fee‑based revenue streams.
Stronger retention and stickiness: When payments, reporting, and settlement are deeply embedded, switching platforms means re‑platforming payments as well as software.
The trade‑off is that once your brand is attached to onboarding flows and payout screens, banks and regulators increasingly see your platform as part of the control environment, even when you don’t hold every license directly.
Which embedded payment type is right for you?
Before you design a single screen, you need clarity on your operating model. Most software‑led platforms end up in one of two buckets.
1. Aggregator / referral‑style models
In an aggregator model, you connect merchants to a processor or merchant‑of‑record provider, often via a referral or reseller agreement. The provider holds the merchant‑of‑record or payment‑facilitation role; you embed their onboarding and checkout experiences into your product.
Where this model shines
Fastest path to market: You can add an “accept payments” option in your platform without building a full risk and compliance program.
Lower operational burden: The provider typically handles direct KYC/KYB, chargebacks, scheme rules and much of PCI scope.
Trade‑offs
Limited control over pricing and settlement policies
Less flexibility in underwriting rules and edge‑case handling
Most transaction margin accrues to the provider
For emerging financial technology (fintech) companies and independent software vendors (ISVs), this is often the best way to validate demand for embedded payments before taking on more responsibility.
2. Payment Facilitation and PFaaS
So, what is payment facilitation and how can it help your business scale? Payment facilitators aggregate many sub‑merchants under a master merchant account and are responsible for underwriting, onboarding, monitoring and funding those sub‑merchants.
Platforms can approach this in two ways:
Managed PFaaS: You act like a payment facilitator in your customers’ eyes, but a specialist provider supplies the core infrastructure, bank sponsorship, and most scheme‑level compliance. You focus on UX, go‑to‑market and higher‑level risk decisions.
Registered Payment Facilitator: Taking this much control allows you to own your acquiring relationships, compliance program, and risk stack.
Why platforms pick these models:
Control over experience: You can brand payment flows, tune onboarding, configure pricing, and keep users inside your app.
Improved economics: Instead of small referral fees, you participate directly in transaction fees and can package value‑add services on top (e.g., recurring billing, account updater).
What you take on:
Risk and underwriting: Payment facilitators are expected to verify sub‑merchant identities and ownership, assess risk, and approve or decline applications before processing starts.
Ongoing monitoring: Networks and regulators expect monitoring for unusual activity, excessive chargebacks, or fraud patterns.
Broader compliance scope: Even with PFaaS, you share responsibility for things like sanctions screening, AML, PCI scope, and automated clearing house (ACH) risk management.
PFaaS is often the “sweet spot”: you improve your business model and customer experience while offloading much of the underlying regulatory and operational complexity to a partner.
Designing payment flows that help users succeed
Once you know your operating model and compliance boundaries, the real differentiation happens in your flows: onboarding, day‑to‑day payment UX, and account lifecycle.
Onboarding: faster, not reckless
Onboarding is where growth and risk often collide. Drag it out and merchants abandon; move too fast, and you open the door to fraud and regulatory findings.
Best‑practice patterns drawn from Registered Payment Facilitation and PFaaS programs include:
Progressive profiling: Start with a lightweight sign‑up (business name, email, basic use case), then request additional data as merchants commit to going live or hit certain volume/feature thresholds.
Tiered underwriting: Auto‑approve lower‑risk merchants; route higher‑risk verticals or large volumes to enhanced review.
Clear status and expectations: Show merchants where they are in the process (“in review,” “approved,” “more information needed”) and what’s left to do.
Done right, you reduce time‑to‑first‑payment while still collecting the data your Registered Payment Facilitation/PFaaS provider and sponsor banks need to be comfortable.
Everyday payment experiences: reduce friction, not insight
Payment experience decisions have an outsized impact on conversion and support tickets. Embedded payments let you keep users in your experience, but you still need to design for clarity and trust. Consider:
Native, branded forms using secure components: Keep users on your platform while leveraging provider‑hosted fields for sensitive data.
Context‑aware friction: Require step‑up verification or additional checks for high‑risk actions (e.g., unusually large payments, new device, unusual IP) but keep low‑risk, everyday payments straightforward.
Transparent errors and states: Distinguish between “card declined,” “account under review,” and “suspected fraud” so merchants know what to do and your support team can triage effectively.
These patterns support higher conversion and better self‑service without relaxing your risk posture.
Account flows as a fraud‑control surface
Account creation, login, password resets, and payout‑account changes are prime targets for account takeover and fraud in embedded environments. Nacha and banking guidance emphasize that financial institutions remain responsible for risks created by third‑party models and new technologies, even when fintechs are involved.
Practical safeguards include:
Stronger authentication for sensitive changes: Require multi‑factor authentication or out‑of‑band verification before users can edit payout bank accounts or issue large refunds.
Lifecycle monitoring: Track behavioral signals over time—device changes, frequent password resets, new IP geographies combined with payout updates—and route suspicious sessions through additional checks.
Coordinated controls with your provider: Align your risk rules (e.g., account flags, velocity checks) with your Payment Facilitator/PFaaS provider’s fraud tools so issues in your app map to controls on the payments side.
These measures help you reduce fraud and protect both your merchants and your own reputation.
Where an embedded payments partner fits in
An experienced payments partner can accelerate this roadmap by:
Providing PCI‑compliant infrastructure, tokenization, and risk tooling.
Handling much of the day‑to‑day underwriting, monitoring, and scheme compliance in PFaaS and Registered Payment Faccilitation models, while collaborating with you on risk policies.
Offering flexible partnership models (referral, reseller, PFaaS, Registered Payment Facilitation) that let you start where you are and grow into deeper ownership when you’re ready.
Supplying real‑time reporting and analytics so you and your merchants can see what’s happening without stitching together multiple dashboards.
The platforms that win in this next wave won’t be those that take the most risk or those that avoid it entirely, but those that treat embedded payments as a growth engine and a risk/control program—designed together from day one.
Want to see how leading platforms scale with embedded payments? Check out our customer success stories to learn what changes when payments are seamless, compliant, and built into your product. Ready to talk with an expert to learn how embedded payments could give your business an advantage? Contact us today.
FAQs
What’s the difference between embedded payments and integrated payments?
Embedded payments build payment functions directly into your platform’s experience so users never leave your app to complete transactions. Integrated payments typically means you’ve connected to a gateway or processor, but users might still be redirected to third‑party pages or separate modules.
Do we have to become a Registered Payment Facilitator to offer embedded payments?
No. Many platforms start with aggregator or referral models, or use PFaaS to embed payments without becoming fully Registered Payment Facilitators themselves. Moving to a Registered Payment Facilitation model makes sense when your transaction volume, economics and risk/compliance capabilities justify the investment.
Who is responsible for KYC/KYB and AML in an embedded model?
In Registered Payment Facilitation and PFaaS setups, the payment facilitator and their sponsor bank usually hold primary obligations under BSA/AML and similar regulations, but platforms are expected to collect accurate data, cooperate with monitoring and align their onboarding flows so regulatory requirements can be met.
How do Nacha rules affect platforms that use ACH?
If your embedded payments offering includes ACH, your role may fall under Nacha’s definitions of Third‑Party Service Provider or Third‑Party Sender, which brings specific registration, audit and agreement requirements. Recent rules also require corporate end users to have risk‑based processes to identify potential fraudulent ACH payments.
How can we speed up merchant onboarding without breaking compliance?
Use automated KYC/KYB tools, progressive profiling and tiered underwriting. Align your data collection with your Payment Facilitator/PFaaS partner’s policies so that low‑risk merchants can be auto‑approved while higher‑risk ones receive enhanced review without unnecessary delays.
How Recurring Rent Payments Improve Collections, Reduce Admin Burden
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Key Takeaways
Manual rent collection drives late payments and inefficiency: Paper checks and cash slow cash flow, increase errors, and consume staff time—contributing to higher delinquency rates and tenant frustration.
Recurring rent payments significantly reduce delinquencies and late fees: Automated, scheduled payments eliminate forgetfulness and friction, improving on-time payment rates and stabilizing monthly cash flow.
Autopay improves tenant satisfaction and operational performance: Recurring payments reduce payment anxiety, minimize rent-chasing, lower turnover, and free property teams to focus on higher-value work.
Rent is one of the largest—and most important—monthly expenses for the 35% of U.S. households that rent their homes. Today’s renters expect the same speed, convenience, and flexibility they get from other online payment platforms.
Despite many tenants’ preference to make rent payments online, many property managers still rely on paper checks and manual processes that frustrate tenants, slow collections, and increase administrative burden. Late and missed payments remain a top operational challenge: 41% of property managers cite late rent payments as a major issue, and 14% of tenants incurred a late fee in 2024.
Recurring rent payments—automated, digital payments scheduled in advance—offer a better way forward, creating a better experience for both renters and property teams. In this blog, we’ll explore how recurring payments overcome the limitations of manual rent collection, reducing delinquencies, stabilizing cash flow, and easing administrative burden.
3 drawbacks of manual rent collection
Manual rent collection can often be a factor in:
Administrative drain: Many property managers find themselves stuck “in the weeds,” spending hours processing checks, updating spreadsheets and making bank deposits—time that could be better spent maintaining properties and building tenant relationships. Without automated reminders or recurring payments, staff must chase late-paying tenants, increasing stress and workload.
Late payments and slow cash flow: With manual payments, you’re often waiting for the money. Checks take time to arrive and clear, delaying payments to mortgage companies, vendors, and staff. If a check bounces, property managers must follow up with the resident and secure another payment.
Increased risk of error and fraud: Manual data entry and cash handling increase the likelihood of mistakes. Late fees, security deposits, and payment records are easier to mishandle without automation. Cash payments lack a digital trail, leading to disputes over lost or partial payments. Storing cash or sensitive bank info exposes managers and tenants to theft and identity fraud.
Recurring rent payments—often called autopay—automatically charge a tenant’s saved bank account or card on a set schedule, typically monthly or biweekly. Once tenants enroll, rent is collected digitally with minimal effort from either party.
Increased on-time rent collection
Collecting rent online with recurring payments makes on-time payments the default instead of the exception.
Units with tenants on autopay achieve a 99% on-time rent rate, compared with 87% for units without autopay.
At Rentec Direct, a provider of online property management software powered by CSG Forte, renters using recurring payments were late only 1% of the time between April and July 2020, versus 22% overall during that period.
Reduced tenant turnover
Recurring payments reduce common pain points that can drive tenants away.
Less payment friction via no more paper checks, manual reminders, or rigid office hours.
Rent becomes a predictable, “set-it-and-forget-it” expense instead of a monthly stressor.
ACH accounts don’t expire like cards, reducing failed payments and late fees.
Apply convenience fees to card payments.
4. Use automated dunning before applying late fees
Send immediate text or email notifications, asking the tenant to update payment info.
Retry payments using intelligent retry logic.
If recovery attempts fail by Day 5, send a formal notice of payment failure.
How to encourage autopay enrollment without adding pressure
Some tenants hesitate to enroll in autopay due to concerns about losing control of their money. If their rent payment is withdrawn three days before a paycheck arrives, it could trigger an overdraft fee. The key is to highlight the control, flexibility, and peace of mind provided by recurring payments.
Late fee prevention: No missed payments due to travel or busy schedules
Split payments: Align rent with biweekly paydays
Credit building: On-time payments may be reported to credit bureaus, helping tenants build credit
Simple, mobile-friendly autopay enrollment built into resident portals removes friction—making renters far more likely to complete setup. Showing residents how easy it is to cancel or pause autopay boosts adoption.
Measuring automatic rent collection success
To evaluate effectiveness, track more than autopay sign-ups. Key metrics include:
Autopay adoption rate: The percentage of your total tenant base enrolled in recurring payments vs. those paying manually. Aim for 85% or higher. If the adoption rate is low, the enrollment process may be too difficult, or you’re not highlighting the benefits clearly enough.
Delinquency rate: The percentage of rental units for which rent has not been paid by the established due date. Target 2% or less for autopay users.
Collection velocity (days to zero): How quickly balances reach zero after the first of the month. Day 1 is the goal.
Payment failure rate: The percentage of recurring transactions that fail due to expired cards or NSF. If the failure rate is high, you may need to encourage ACH instead of credit cards or implement an account updater and recovery services with intelligent retry logic.
Administrative labor reduction: The number of hours staff save on rent collection tasks. Track how many hours staff spend on manual reconciliation, chasing late payments (e.g., sending emails and making phone calls), and processing checks—before and after implementing autopay. You should reduce “rent week” administrative labor by 50% or more.
Streamline rent payments and cut late fees with CSG Forte
Automatic rent collection through recurring payments delivers faster collections, fewer late payments, and a smoother experience for both renters and property teams. For property managers focused on modernizing operations and improving retention, recurring payments are no longer optional—they’re the standard.
CSG Forte’s property management payment solutions make it easy for renters to pay online while automating rent collection to simplify workflows and strengthen cash flow.
Contact us to learn how CSG Forte helps streamline rent payments, reduce delinquencies, and keep renters satisfied.
How Modern Bank Bill Pay Solutions Compete on CX, Cost, and Risk
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Key Takeaways
Bill payments are now a strategic engagement and trust driver for banks, not just a back‑office utility.
Customers expect fast, clear, mobile‑first bill pay with flexible options like autopay, partial payments, and text‑to‑pay.
A phased roadmap—improving UX, expanding channels, centralizing insights, and adding valuable services—helps banks compete with fintechs while managing cost and risk.
For years, bank bill pay was treated as a “utility feature”—something that just needed to exist inside digital banking. That’s no longer enough.
Consumers now pay most of their bills online, and the share paid directly on biller sites has steadily grown as those sites improved their user experience (UX) and flexibility.
At the same time, financial technology companies (fintechs) have built bill pay into wallets, P2P apps, and budgeting tools, wrapping payments in helpful nudges and clear communication.
When that’s the competitive set, bank bill pay solutions becomes strategic in three ways:
Primary engagement driver: Bill pay is one of the most frequent digital banking activities. If customers find it easier to pay bills elsewhere, they have fewer reasons to log in to your apps or portal.
Trust signal: Paying a mortgage, utilities, credit cards, and subscriptions through your bank means customers are trusting you with on‑time, accurate delivery of life‑critical payments. Missed or late payments—even when caused by UX friction or routing issues—damage that trust.
Defensive moat against fintechs: As more non‑banks offer “pay from any account” options, a modern bill payment platform helps keep payments—and data—anchored with the bank, instead of disintermediated by third parties.
Banks that treat bill pay as a differentiator design the experience to be:
Simple enough to use every month without thinking
Flexible enough to fit changing income and expense patterns
Reliable and transparent enough that customers never have to wonder, “Did that actually go through?”
What customers expect from modern bank‑hosted bill pay
Customer expectations around bill pay have shifted in three big ways.
1. Speed and clarity as table stakes
Customers assume:
Payments will post quickly, with clear expected posting dates.
They’ll see unambiguous confirmations and receipts.
They can easily track payment history and status.
Anything less feels outdated compared to biller sites and fintech apps that behave more like modern payment portals with features such as real‑time status and push notifications.
2. Flexible options that match real‑world cash flow
Many consumers don’t pay every bill in a single monthly batch anymore. Data across billers shows that most bills are still one‑time payments, leaving them dependent on customers’ organization and memory—and about half end up being paid late.
As a result, customers increasingly look for:
Autopay (“set it and forget it”) for recurring bills
Scheduled payments to align with paydays
Partial‑pay, over‑pay, and pre‑pay options when they need extra flexibility
3. Omnichannel, mobile‑first access
Customers want to pay:
In a mobile‑optimized web or native app
Via text or email links when they get reminders
Over the phone or in person when necessary
The bar has been raised by billers offering text‑to‑pay, digital wallets, and guest checkout flows that don’t force registration.
If your bank’s bill pay solution doesn’t deliver on these basics, customers will either default to individual biller sites (where the biller can cross‑sell credit or competing products) or adopt fintech apps that feel more in tune with their day‑to‑day lives.
Balancing convenience, cost, and risk
As banks modernize bill pay, the following tensions show up repeatedly as:
Customer convenience vs. payment costs
Cards and wallets are often the most convenient for customers but carry higher interchange costs.
ACH/eChecks tend to be more cost‑efficient for recurring, predictable payments.
A modern strategy doesn’t force customers into a single method. Instead, it:
Makes cost‑efficient options like ACH easy and attractive for recurring bills.
Uses clearer messaging and incentives to guide customers toward preferred rails where it makes sense.
Frictionless UX vs. fraud and compliance controls
Security and compliance are non‑negotiable, especially for banks. But many controls can be applied behind the scenes:
Tokenization and PCI‑compliant forms ensure sensitive card data isn’t stored or exposed unnecessarily, reducing PCI scope while protecting customers.
Risk‑based monitoring and layered defenses can be applied to higher‑risk actions (adding payees, changing payment accounts, large transfers) without slowing every simple bill payment.
The goal is to apply sensible friction where risk is highest, not across the entire journey.
Modern capabilities vs. internal capacity
Many institutions struggle to modernize because payments data is fragmented across systems and teams, and they lack in‑house development resources to re‑platform bill pay.
That’s where hosted, configurable bill pay solutions can help:
They provide modern UX patterns, omnichannel support, and robust security out of the box.
Banks retain branding, messaging, and policy control, without needing to build and maintain payment infrastructure themselves.
Building a roadmap to modernize bank bill pay
Modernization doesn’t have to be a single, massive project. A phased roadmap helps banks compete more quickly while de‑risking the journey.
Step 1: Assess and prioritize friction
Start with a pragmatic diagnostic:
Analyze abandonment points in current bill pay flows.
Identify which bill types generate the most support calls or disputes.
Gather qualitative feedback from customers and front‑line staff about what’s confusing, slow, or unreliable.
Use this to rank opportunities by:
Impact on customer experience (NPS, complaints).
Impact on on‑time payment rates and late fees.
Implementation complexity.
Step 2: Modernize the front‑end experience
Before replacing every back‑end system, banks can often make significant gains by:
Simplifying and standardizing UX across mobile and web.
Adding guest checkout and reducing required fields.
Improving confirmation, receipts, and payment status visibility.
Introducing or refining autopay and scheduling options.
Hosted, branded bill pay portals can accelerate this phase, enabling banks to define graphic and contextual elements while taking advantage of proven UX patterns and mobile responsiveness.
Step 3: Expand channels and options
Once the core portal is improved:
Add text‑to‑pay and email‑to‑pay options that deep‑link into the bill pay flow.
Introduce or promote digital wallets for customers who prefer stored credentials across devices.
Align these with a clear communication strategy so customers know what’s available and when to use it.
Step 4: Centralize operations and insights
To sustain and optimize modern bill pay, banks need better operational visibility:
Centralized, cloud‑based reporting across channels and payment rails.
Real‑time access for customer‑facing teams to view transactions, cancel scheduled payments, process refunds, or voids as needed.
This kind of central management hub allows banks to:
Spot issues early (e.g., spikes in declines or specific payees with frequent errors).
Answer customer questions quickly without escalating to back‑office teams.
Track the impact of changes on completion, adoption, and decline rates.
Step 5: Optimize with data and value‑added services
As bill pay matures, banks can further defend against fintech competition by quietly improving reliability and approvals behind the scenes using value‑added services such as:
Account updater to refresh expired or reissued cards and reduce decline rates.
Account verification to lower ACH decline rates and reduce fraud risk.
Automated recovery services for failed ACH due to insufficient funds, with smart retry logic that minimizes customer friction.
These capabilities help ensure that when customers do everything “right”—set up autopay, pay on time—the payment actually goes through. That kind of reliability is a powerful differentiator, even if customers never see the mechanics.
How a modern bill pay partner fits in
Most banks don’t want to become payment UX design shops or PCI experts. They want to provide secure, reliable, flexible bill pay that keeps them at the center of their customers’ financial lives.
CSG Forte BillPay is designed for exactly that outcome:
Hosted, branded portals that preserve bank identity while delivering a modern, mobile‑friendly experience.
Omnichannel acceptance across online, mobile, POS, IVR, and text‑to‑pay so customers can pay how and when they want.
Flexible payment options including scheduled, recurring, partial, over‑pay, and pre‑pay to match real‑world cash flow needs.
Security and compliance by design, with tokenized, PCI‑compliant payment capture and storage that reduces PCI scope.
Centralized reporting and controls via a cloud‑based operations hub, giving banks a unified view of payments and tools for refunds, voids, and reconciliation.
By pairing these capabilities with a pragmatic roadmap, banks can move from “good enough” bill pay to an experience that truly competes with the best fintechs—on customer terms, without compromising on risk or operational control.
Why should banks invest in modernizing bill pay now?
Because customer expectations and competitive pressure have shifted. More bills are paid online and via digital channels, and fintechs and billers are offering flexible, mobile‑first experiences that can disintermediate banks from day‑to‑day payment behavior.
What bill pay features do customers consider “must‑have”?
Clear payment status, fast posting, the ability to set and manage autopay and scheduled payments, mobile accessibility, and support for common rails like ACH and cards are increasingly seen as table stakes.
How can banks reduce the cost of digital bill pay?
By encouraging cost‑efficient rails like ACH for recurring, predictable payments and using centralized reporting to monitor and adjust the mix of channels and methods over time.
How does a hosted bill pay solution impact security and PCI scope?
When sensitive card data is captured using PCI‑compliant, tokenized forms hosted by a payments provider, banks can reduce their PCI scope while maintaining strong data protection and compliance posture.
Is a full core replacement required to modernize bill pay?
No. Many banks start by modernizing the front‑end experience and centralizing reporting through hosted bill pay portals that integrate with existing systems, then phase in more changes over time.
How Public and Private Utilities Can Modernize Bill Payments
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Key Takeaways
Modern utility bill pay solutions stabilize revenue by combining flexible options, reminders, and multichannel access on a secure, PCI‑aligned platform.
Customers now expect branded, mobile‑friendly portals with self‑service tools like autopay, schedule‑pay and text‑to‑pay, plus strong privacy and fraud protections.
CSG Forte BillPay and related tools such as Account Updater and recovery services help utilities reduce declines and manual collections work without replacing their CIS.
When your community members turn on the lights or the tap, they rarely think about how their bill gets paid. You do. Late and delinquent payments tighten cash flow, stretch staff thin, and can delay maintenance or capital projects. At the same time, customers expect to pay every bill (utilities included) from their phone in just a few taps.
Modern utility bill pay solutions are how city and county leaders close that gap. The goal is not a flashy new portal for its own sake. It is a more reliable, flexible, and trusted way to collect the essential revenue that keeps essential services running.
Budget constraints often make it difficult for utilities to consider overhauling their entire customer information system, so leaders must look for economical solutions that enhance payment processes without requiring a costly system replacement.
Why utility bill pay is under pressure
Cash flow, delinquencies, and collection costs
For many utilities, both public and privately owned, too much staff time goes into chasing payments:
Customers pay month to month instead of enrolling in autopay, so cash flow depends on them remembering due dates.
Some delinquencies happen simply because a customer forgot or their card expired—not because they could not pay.
Those activities have a real cost in overtime, burnout, and delayed projects.
Modern utility bill pay solutions attack those root causes by making it easy for customers to set autopay, schedule payments around their paydays, and keep stored payment information current with tools like ACH-based recurring payments. Having the capability to automatically refresh stored card details when issuers reissue or update cards means recurring payments can continue without disruption, which is an important lever in any recurring billing environment.
Customers compare you to every other online bill
Your customers do not only compare you to other similar service providers. They compare you to their bank, mobile carrier, and streaming services. Government payments research shows residents increasingly expect payments to be digital, fast, and easy, and security and convenience top their list of decision factors.
For utilities, that translates to:
A clean, mobile‑friendly portal that looks like your utility, not a generic third‑party site
The ability to store a preferred payment method securely
Autopay and flexible scheduling options
Email or text reminders and confirmations instead of paper‑only notices
If paying their water or power bill feels clunky or less secure than other bills, many customers will push it to the bottom of the stack.
Security, privacy, and fraud concerns for public utilities
Digital wallets, alongside in‑person and phone payments (where configured)
Self-service tools: autopay, payment plans, and reminders
Self‑service is one of the fastest ways to reduce delinquencies and call volume. Customers expect:
Autopay so they can “set it and forget it”
Scheduled payments that match pay cycles
Partial‑pay, over‑pay and pre‑pay options, within your policies
Email and text reminders with links that take them directly to a secure payment page
The combination of reminders and flexible options is especially useful for residents who want to stay current but juggle variable income or multiple obligations.
Building flexibility into payment options and timing
Options for on‑time, behind, and at‑risk accounts
A one‑size‑fits‑all bill pay experience is not realistic. You need options that work for:
On‑time payers who should be nudged toward autopay and low‑friction digital channels
Occasionally late payers who benefit most from reminders, saved payment methods, and scheduling
At‑risk payers who may need structured payment plans, partial‑pay options, or short extensions within policy
Utilities need a highly configurable solution that allows them to decide whether registration is required, which payment types are accepted, and which options (like partial‑pay or pre‑pay) are available for specific programs or customer types. What works for a municipality’s fiber customers may not work for its water users, for example.
Reminders and account updates prevent avoidable delinquencies
Many failed or late payments are avoidable. Either the customer forgot, or their stored card information is out of date. A reliable, flexible payment platform helps address both by:
Allowing recurrent users opt in to email notifications and text‑to‑pay on their mobile phones, so they get proactive reminders and confirmations
Automatically refreshing stored card credentials behind the scenes when issuers update or reissue accounts
Make bill payments work harder for your utility
Utility leaders do not need another massive system overhaul—they need a bill pay experience that helps customers stay current while protecting staff time and operating budgets. The capabilities outlined above—branded portals, flexible payment options, self-service tools, and smart reminders—are now baseline expectations, not nice-to-haves.
For many utilities, integration means:
Daily files that update the CIS with payments
Flexible file formats that align with existing reconciliation workflows
Cloud-based reporting so finance and customer service teams can see payment status without logging into multiple systems
CSG Forte BillPay is designed to support that modern experience while working alongside your existing CIS, not replacing it. Paired with tools like Account Updater and recovery services, BillPay helps keep stored card details current, reduce preventable declines and reversals, and streamline collections workflows so your team can focus on higher‑value work.
If you’re ready to stabilize cash flow, lower manual collections effort and give customers a bill pay experience that feels as modern as every other bill they pay, connect with CSG Forte to explore what BillPay can do for your utility.
Frequently asked questions
1. Do we have to replace our customer information system (CIS) to modernize bill pay?
No. Modern bill pay platforms like CSG Forte BillPay are designed to work alongside your existing CIS. Many utilities start by exchanging daily files or simple integrations that update payment status, then expand as needs evolve—without a multi‑year rip‑and‑replace.
2. How does BillPay help reduce late and delinquent payments?
BillPay supports tools customers already use for other bills: autopay, scheduled payments, email and text reminders, and stored payment methods. When combined, these features make it easier for customers to stay current, even if their income or schedules vary from month to month.
3. What payment methods can customers use?
Utilities can accept a mix of ACH/eCheck, major debit and credit cards, and digital wallets, alongside in‑person and phone payments where configured. That flexibility lets you meet different customer preferences while steering volume toward lower‑cost channels when appropriate.
4. How does Account Updater help with recurring payments?
Account Updater works behind the scenes with participating card issuers to refresh stored card details when accounts are updated or reissued. That helps keep recurring payments running smoothly, reducing avoidable declines and the manual work that follows.
5. How does BillPay support security, privacy and compliance requirements?
CSG Forte’s bill pay solutions are built to support PCI‑aligned processing and help limit staff exposure to sensitive payment data. You can configure secure online, mobile and phone channels that meet your organization’s policies while giving residents confidence that their information is protected.
How Modern Healthcare Payment Solutions Improve Patient Satisfaction and Collections
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Key Takeaways
Outdated healthcare payment systems frustrate patients and cost providers revenue: Confusing bills, limited payment options, and inconvenient processes damage satisfaction, delay collections, and drive negative reviews and patient churn.
Patient-friendly digital payments improve collections without adding staff burden: Transparency, choice of payment methods, flexible financing, and omnichannel payment options make it easier for patients to pay, which helps providers get paid faster.
Picture this: Nine months after your medical appointment, you open your mailbox to a paper account statement. Inside is a return envelope and a perforated section to return with your payment. The statement offers no online payment option, so you call the office to pay by phone. The receptionist warns you that given that several months have passed since treatment, your account could be at risk of heading to collections if you don’t pay immediately. You reluctantly share your credit card information over the phone. Doing so leaves you uneasy about its security.
Healthcare billing and payments are significant pain points for patients. Unlike retail transactions where customers know the price and pay on the spot, healthcare is characterized by a delayed, fragmented, and opaque financial experiences. While the rest of the world has moved to one-click payments, healthcare is often stuck in the past, relying on paper statements and mailed-in check payments that are inconvenient for patients and delay cash flow.
Legacy healthcare payment processing systems can delay collections and damage patient satisfaction and loyalty. Across industries, 14% of consumers prioritize convenience in their bill paying, with Millennials (23%) more likely to skip bills that make it too hard to pay.
Modern patient payment solutions simplify and accelerate the payment process for patients and providers. In this blog, we’ll explore the shortcomings of traditional healthcare payment solutions and highlight patient-friendly payment options that overcome them. You’ll learn how to design effective patient payment financing plans that increase collections and how to measure the success of your payment solutions.
Traditional Healthcare Payment Solutions Frustrate Patients
Patients expect paying medical bills to be as quick and easy as shopping online. But healthcare bill payment experiences often fall short, leaving patients dealing with several payment problems:
Lack of transparency: Almost 60% of patients are dissatisfied with how providers communicate healthcare costs. Unclear bills, surprise charges, and opaque pricing make managing medical expenses challenging. Patients often experience confusion regarding payment processes, including where, how, and how much to pay. One survey found that 56% of patients find comprehending what they owe stressful.
Not enough choice in payment methods: Old-school payment systems—paper statements and check payments—just aren’t good enough for today’s patients. One third (33%) of consumers experience frustration when they are not offered modern payment solutions such as digital wallet or mobile payments. Most (87%) consumers think it’s important for their healthcare provider to offer their preferred payment method, and 24% would consider switching to a different healthcare provider if they couldn’t pay with their preferred payment method.
Inconvenience: Healthcare is behind other industries when it comes to payment ease, with only 8% of consumers indicating that healthcare payments are easy. Login and authentication problems, lack of autopay options, and being redirected to a third-party payment portal (that doesn’t work) waste time and frustrate patients.
Poor (or no) communication regarding patient financing options: About two thirds (67%) of patients reported being dissatisfied with healthcare payment options offered to them, according to a survey of U.S. consumers. Despite 78% of providers offering patient payment schedules, 45% of patients said they were never made aware of these financing options—highlighting a significant gap in communication and awareness.
Patient-Friendly Payment Solutions
Modern healthcare payment solutions boost collections and streamline workflows—helping providers get paid faster without adding to billing staff workloads. Delivering a convenient bill payment experience means eliminating friction from the entire process—from scheduling to final payment. Patient-friendly payment solutions include:
Upfront price transparency. Provide a clear, easy-to-understand good faith estimate of the patient’s out-of-pocket responsibility before the visit, not weeks later. When healthcare providers use embedded payments, patients know their costs and payment options before they sign the treatment consent form. This empowers patients to make informed choices about their care and reduces unpleasant billing surprises.
Payment reminders. Send timely, personalized reminders via each patient’s preferred channel, without overwhelming them. One survey found that 68% of consumers prefer an email notification when their healthcare payment is due, 54% want a text notification, and almost 50% like to receive a mailed statement.
Choice of payment methods. Increase on-time payments by allowing patients to pay by:
Automated clearing house (ACH): Often used for recurring billing, ACH payments have lower processing fees and failure rates than credit cards.
Digital wallet: Payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Venmo offer multi-layered security and greater convenience, ease, and efficiency than traditional payment methods.
Auto Pay: Allow patients to store a payment method for future co-pays or recurring bills.
Convenient payment channels. Give patients several fast, easy ways to pay:
Patient portal. Many (62%) consumers prefer to pay medical bills online, and 40% of patients would like to see their healthcare providers support online portal payments. Online digital [payment] portals provide a convenient, 24/7 access to:
Phone (IVR or live agent).Interactive voice response (IVR) payment systems provide a secure way for people to pay anytime, anywhere, without an internet connection. Instead of entering patients’ account numbers, call center agents can generate secure payment pages (nanosites) on the spot and send the link to patients via text or email. Patients don’t have to log in (and remember a password they seldom use) to access the payment page.
Text-to-pay: Reach patients where they are: on their phones. By sending a payment request and link to a secure payment portal via text message, patients can pay with just a tap from their mobile device, without logging in to the patient portal.
Perfect Your Patient Payments with CSG Forte
Paying medical bills shouldn’t be painful. Healthcare providers can easily provide flexible, convenient payment options that promote prompt payment by using CSG Forte’s secure healthcare payment solutions. Our platform:
Allows patients to pay online, in person, or by phone using credit/debit cards, ACH, or digital wallets.
Supports recurring payments, text-to-pay, and payment plans.
Integrates with electronic health record (EHR) and practice management systems, simplifying administrative workflows and reducing errors.
Has Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) compliance built in.
Are you ready to cure your organization’s patient payment ailments and improve collections? Schedule a demo with a CSG Forte expert to see how our healthcare payment processing software improves the payment experience for patients and providers.
Healthcare Finance Leaders’ Guide to Straight Through Processing
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Key Takeaways
Straight Through Processing (STP) automates virtual card payments from “approved” to “deposited + reconciled,” typically in about one day instead of 60–90 days.
STP is purpose‑built for healthcare, handling both insurer (B2B) and patient (C2B via payer portals) flows while feeding clean remittance data into the platform and your revenue tools.
The solution is designed for HIPAA, PCI DSS and HITRUST‑aligned environments, and runs behind the scenes without forcing disruptive changes to your EHR or practice management stack.
Healthcare finance leaders sit at a difficult intersection. You’re responsible for keeping operating margins in the black while also staying true to the organization’s clinical and community mission—and increasingly, those goals are in tension.
Margins are improving in some markets, but they remain thin and uneven. At the same time, more revenue is tied to patient responsibility, where collection rates continue to fall. The bottom line: every dollar that sits in flight instead of in your operating account adds volatility you can’t afford.
This is exactly where Straight Through Processing (STP) can change the equation—by compressing the time from insurer approval to provider deposit of virtual credit card payments from up to 60 days to roughly one day, and by stripping out the manual work and risk that come with mailed virtual cards.
The new realities behind your payer mix
On paper, payer mix still looks familiar: Medicare, Medicaid, commercial and self-pay summarized neatly on the income statement. But the cash story behind that mix has shifted.
High-deductible plans and rising out-of-pocket costs mean more of each encounter’s total charge now falls to the patient after insurance, not just to the insurer. Those patient-owed balances are far harder to predict and collect than contracted insurer payments, and many organizations are recovering only a fraction of what’s billed on the patient side. The result:
Less predictable cash flow, as a larger share of revenue depends on patient behavior instead of institutional payers.
Higher write-offs, with bad debt and charity care climbing as affordability challenges grow.
Greater sensitivity to delays on the “reliable” side of the mix—your insurer reimbursements must do more work to stabilize cash.
Against that backdrop, it’s no longer enough to optimize only patient collections. To protect margin and mission, healthcare finance, IT and operations leaders need to accelerate every predictable dollar.
Where should you start? The lowest-hanging fruit is payer reimbursements.
How virtual credit card payment automation accelerates cash flow
For many organizations, insurer reimbursements still arrive the hard way: Payers issue virtual cards for approved claims and send those card details through the mail, leaving providers to finish the last mile manually.
That “status quo” workflow looks like this:
Letters arrive at the practice or lockbox.
Staff open and sort mail, retrieve virtual card details and key payments into a terminal or practice management system.
Teams reconcile deposits and remittance data days or weeks later, often by hand and often across multiple systems.
On paper, it’s a digital payment. In reality, it’s a paper-era process with familiar consequences: extra administrative work, slower access to cash, more opportunities for fraud or loss and a wider PCI DSS footprint as staff handle card numbers directly.
Those pain points set the stage for a different approach: automating the entire path from virtual card creation to deposit and reconciliation, without changing how payers adjudicate claims.
What is Straight Through Processing?
STP is a payment automation process offered that allows healthcare providers to receive payments from insurance companies and from patients (via their payers) in about one day, directly into their bank accounts.
Instead of sending virtual card details through the mail and relying on manual posting, STP:
Keeps the virtual card model at the payer level: The insurer continues to generate a virtual card (VCC) for each approved reimbursement or patient balance, just as they do today.
Routes those virtual cards electronically to CSG Forte: The insurer sends the VCC details and remittance data to CSG Forte over secure, encrypted channels.
Automates virtual credit card payment processing and deposit: CSG Forte processes the virtual card and deposits funds directly into the provider’s bank account—typically the day after the claim is approved, instead of weeks or months later.
Delivers complete reconciliation: Payments and remittance information are surfaced in CSG Forte’s platform so your finance and operations teams can track, match and report on every transaction efficiently.
From your team’s perspective, reimbursements simply show up as electronic deposits with clean remittance data, without anyone handling plastic, paper or card numbers.
How STP fits into your insurance and patient payment flows
For healthcare administrators, IT and revenue cycle leaders, it helps to see how STP aligns with existing claim and billing processes.
At a high level, two flows benefit: B2B (payer → provider) and C2B (patient → provider via payer).
1. Insurance (B2B) payments
A patient receives care; the provider submits a claim.
The payer adjudicates and approves a portion—for example, $110 on a $200 visit.
The insurer generates a virtual card for the approved amount and routes it electronically to CSG Forte.
CSG Forte processes the VCC and deposits the $110 directly into the provider’s bank account, usually within one business day of approval.
CSG Forte’s web platform presents the payment and associated remittance data so your team can post, reconcile and report without rekeying or guesswork.
2. Patient (C2B) payments via payer portals
After insurance, the patient still owes, say, $50 (copays, deductibles, coinsurance).
The patient pays their balance through a payer-linked portal using an HSA/FSA or other card.
That payment hits the insurer’s engine, which again creates a virtual card for the $50 balance and sends it to CSG Forte.
CSG Forte processes the virtual credit card payment and deposits the $50 into the same provider account, with remittance data aligned to the patient and claim.
By centralizing both flows through STP, you:
Reduce manual touch points.
Gain a more predictable view of insurer and patient cash.
Create a cleaner foundation for downstream patient billing and collections.
From mailed cards to automated deposits: the STP advantage
Replacing mailed virtual cards with straight-through electronic deposits unlocks a set of concrete advantages across finance, operations and compliance.
1. Faster access to cash: Moving from up to 60 days of mail-based reimbursement to roughly one day after approval has a direct impact on days in A/R and days cash on hand. That acceleration can:
Smooth intramonth liquidity swings.
Reduce reliance on short-term borrowing or internal juggling.
Support more proactive decisions around staffing, capex and growth.
2. Lower administrative burden: With STP, your teams no longer need to open envelopes, key card numbers into terminals or manually match deposits to remittances. Our platform consolidates payment and remittance data so staff can focus on exception handling instead of transactional data entry. In an environment where revenue cycle and billing roles are hard to staff and retain, simplicity significantly increases efficiency for lean teams.
3. Reduced fraud and loss exposure: Automated virtual card processing significantly reduces the surface area for:
Intercepted mail and stolen card details.
Card testing fraud on exposed numbers.
Misapplied or lost payments that never make it to your deposit account.
By keeping sensitive card data within encrypted, controlled systems and eliminating physical mail, STP helps lower your fraud and loss risk while improving traceability.
4. Stronger security and compliance posture: CSG Forte’s healthcare payments capabilities, including STP, are designed to support high standards of HIPAA, PCI DSS and HITRUST-aligned security controls. Because your staff are no longer handling card numbers directly, your PCI scope is narrower and easier to manage and your audit trail for payer remittances becomes more robust.
Ensuring compliance and security in payment automation
For healthcare administrators and operations leaders, the value of STP isn’t just “faster payments.” It’s a set of strategic improvements in:
Finance and revenue cycles
Cash flow acceleration: Shorter reimbursement cycles stabilize liquidity and free working capital for strategic initiatives, not just firefighting.
More predictable revenue: With insurer and payer portal payments flowing directly to your accounts, forecasting becomes more reliable.
Cleaner close: Automated posting and reconciliation reduce end-of-month surprises and manual journal entries.
IT and data teams
Fewer brittle customizations: STP runs behind the scenes handling the virtual card processing; your core EHR and practice management systems don’t need invasive changes.
Better data quality: Consistent remittance data that is aligned with deposits and supports more accurate analytics and reporting across payer, specialty and facility.
Security by design: Centralizing virtual credit card payment processing with a healthcare-ready payments partner helps you align with existing security and risk frameworks rather than creating new exceptions.
Operations and practice leadership
Staff efficiency: Each remittance that posts automatically is one fewer piece of paper to touch or spreadsheet to reconcile.
Less burnout from repetitive work: Reducing tedious, error-prone tasks makes it easier to retain experienced revenue cycle and billing staff in a tight labor market.
Alignment with long-term automation strategy: Industry research continues to highlight significant savings potential from automating administrative processes across healthcare finance. STP supports your broader automation strategy.
Moving from 60 days to 1 day with CSG Forte
Healthcare providers can’t afford to leave cash flow to chance—not when margins are thin, patient affordability is under pressure and labor markets are tight. Optimizing patient collections will always matter, but stabilizing the predictable, contracted side of revenue is just as critical.
CSG Forte’s Straight Through Processing gives healthcare finance, IT and operations leaders a practical lever to:
Replace mailed virtual cards with automated deposits.
Shorten reimbursement cycles from months to roughly a day.
Reduce fraud and compliance risk tied to manual card handling.
Free staff from low-value, high-volume tasks.
All while working within the payer and portal ecosystems you already use. STP does not require changes to payer adjudication or your core EHR/practice management systems.
Ready to learn more? Connect with experts from our team to see how STP can fit into your healthcare payment workflows and revenue cycle strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ 1: What is virtual credit card payment automation in healthcare?
Virtual credit card (VCC) payment automation replaces mailed virtual card letters and manual keying with a fully electronic flow from payer to provider bank account.
In the STP model, payers still generate a virtual card for each approved claim or patient balance, but they send the card credentials and remittance data directly to CSG Forte over secure channels instead of sending paper to your office.
CSG Forte then processes those cards automatically, deposits funds to your account (typically the day after approval) and surfaces the associated remittance data so your team can post and reconcile without touching envelopes or terminals.
FAQ 2: How does CSG Forte’s STP differ from ACH or check‑based payments?
Check-based and many “virtual card by mail” workflows rely on postal delivery and manual keying, which can stretch the window from approval to deposit to 30–90 days and consume significant staff time.
ACH EFT can eliminate paper but often still requires a separate process to match deposits with remittance files and handle exceptions. STP focuses specifically on virtual card reimbursements: it automates the last mile from “virtual card issued” to “funds in your bank with matched remittance,” so you get the speed and card-rail protections of VCCs with far less manual work.
Many groups pursue ACH and STP together—using ACH where they can, and applying STP to the substantial volume of virtual card payments that won’t go away in the near term.
FAQ 3: Is STP available for all payment types and payers?
Today’s STP offering is focused on automating virtual card reimbursements, covering both insurer payments and patient payments made through payer-linked portals (e.g., HSA/FSA spend).
Within that universe, you can choose whether to enroll only insurer (B2B), only patient (C2B) or both flows, and you can route them to the appropriate bank accounts.
STP does not currently turn every payer or every payment method into a straight‑through flow, but it gives you a high‑impact way to automate a large and growing slice of card-based reimbursements without waiting for every payer to move to ACH.
FAQ 4: What compliance and security standards does STP support?
STP is designed to operate within HIPAA, PCI DSS and HITRUST‑aligned security frameworks, reflecting the dual sensitivity of payment data and protected health information (PHI).
Card data and remittance information move through encrypted, access‑controlled systems; staff no longer handle card numbers directly, which helps narrow your PCI scope and strengthens audit trails for payer remittances.
On top of that, our platform provides role‑based access, MFA, IP whitelisting and detailed logging so finance, IT and compliance teams can enforce least‑privilege access and reconstruct who did what, when and why.
FAQ 5: Does STP require changes to my EHR, practice management or RCM systems?
STP is intentionally designed to run “behind the scenes” so you don’t have to rip and replace core systems to benefit from automation.
Virtual card processing and data normalization happen on the CSG Forte side; you can start by centralizing acceptance, settlement and reconciliation and then deepen integrations into your EHR, PM or RCM tools over time.
Many organizations use STP to stabilize cash and clean up remittance data first, then work with their internal teams and vendors to map that cleaner data into existing posting workflows rather than rebuilding those workflows from scratch.
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