Overview

This article will walk you through the steps of setting up an account with Stripe, one of the option we have for integrated merchant services. You will setup a Stripe account on Stripe's website, then you send us some information about your account so that we can enable the integration and you can begin processing credit card payments through Cerbo and the Patient Portal.


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Details

Set Up Your Stripe Account

First, set up your account at stripe.com.

Then activate your account in your Stripe dashboard by clicking on Activate Account at the upper left. You will need to provide basic information about your business and the bank account where you want credit card payments to be deposited.


Once that is done, make sure you're in live mode using the toggle button at the bottom of the Stripe menu. Click the toggle to change away from Viewing test data. You can go back to Test mode at any time (but can only process credit card payments in Live mode).



Set Up Webhooks

Next, you are going to add webhooks "endpoints" so that information is sent from Stripe to Cerbo. This is very important for (1) enabling you to set a subscription to stop after a certain number of payments in Cerbo - webhooks allow Cerbo to count the number of payments as they occur, (2) failed payment alerts in Cerbo, and (3) troubleshooting Stripe issues, should they arise, from our end.


In the menu, click on Developers, then on Webhooks. In the Endpoints section, click on the + Add endpoint button at the top right.



Under Endpoint URL, put https://your EMR URL.md-hq.com/webhooks/stripe.php, replacing "your EMR URL" with the unique subdomain that you use to access your EMR. Your unique subdomain is the part that comes between "https://" and ".md-hq.com" in the link that you use to log into the EMR.


Under Events to send, use the drop down menu to select the events that should trigger a webhook to go to Cerbo. This includes ALL of the events under ALL of the following (you can click on the main item in the drop down menu to add all its events at once - repeat as needed until all are added):

  • Charge
  • Customer
  • Invoice
  • Payment Method
  • Plan


Once you've added all of these, there will be quite a few endpoints in the list. You can ignore the warning about how enabling a lot of events may result in high load on your servers.


Click on Add endpoint to save.


Linking Stripe to your Cerbo EHR

In the menu, click on Developers and then API Keys. Make sure that you don't see "Viewing test data" in orange at the top (if you do, you just need to toggle off of Viewing test data to see the live keys).


Copy and paste both the live Publishable and Secret keys into a sticky note in John Doe's chart in your EMR, and save the sticky note. You may need to click where indicated for the Secret key to "Reveal live key token" (and may need to enter your password to view it).



The two keys, which are long strings of letters and numbers, should start with "sk_live_..." and "pk_live_..." Send your account manager an email, or (email support@cer.bo if you are out of onboarding) to let us know where you've saved the sticky note. We'll log in to your build, pick up the keys, and let you know once your Stripe integration is complete and ready for use! 

  • DO NOT send us your keys via email, as this is sensitive information and email is not secure.
  • Do not send a screenshot - we need to be able to copy and paste the keys exactly to set up your account.


Stripe Configuration

In the Settings page, you can set various configuration options, including an option to send patient emails about upcoming renewals or expiring cards.


Important Note to Avoid "Silent" Payment Failures


For failed subscriptions, you want to make sure your settings are correct to avoid a situation where a subscription fails, but no failure notification is generated.

  • In the menu, click on Settings at the bottom
  • Under Stripe apps, click on Subscriptions and emails
  • Under Manage failed payments, make sure that Subscription status is "If all retries for a payment fail, leave the subscription as-is"

If "mark the subscription as unpaid" is selected, Stripe may stop trying to pay the subscription without sending any failure notification of any kind.


Accepting FSA and HSA Cards on Stripe

Stripe is able to accept Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and Health Saving Account (HSA) credit/debit cards. However, before you can do so, you need to contact Stripe and request that they classify your account as an MCC business. More information on setting this up can be found here.


Getting Credit Card Information from Another Program

If you have credit card information on file in another program, such as Authorize.net or Braintree, Stripe can likely import this information. Or you can add a credit card to a patient's account in the EMR by clicking on "Save New Credit Card" in the Billing Info tab of the Patient Info pop-out. Or, patients can add a credit card via their Patient Portal.