Hidden Fee Finder for Dental Practices: Check Your Merchant Statement

How this works: the assumptions behind your numbers

Every number above comes from the totals you enter plus the assumptions below. Assumptions are estimates, not verified rates.

• Industry average effective rate by segment: retail 2.55%, restaurant 2.75%, ecommerce 3.15%, services 2.90%, healthcare 2.65%, b2b 2.80%, high_risk 4.25%. Source: TouchSuite pricing assumptions file (estimates only; replace with verified figures before launch).
• Comparison tolerance band: ±0.25 percentage points counts as 'close to average'. Source: Tool design assumption to avoid flagging trivial differences.
• Last month is representative: Monthly fee amounts are multiplied by 12 to annualize. Source: Tool design assumption; seasonal businesses should treat annual figures as rough.
• Annual fee frequency: Annual fee entered as a once-a-year amount, multiplied by 1. Source: Tool design assumption.
• Early termination fee: Treated as a one-time cost, not annualized. Source: Tool design assumption.
• Fee classification tags: Interchange and card brand fees tagged 'typically pass-through'; listed account-level fees tagged 'typically processor-set'. Source: General industry structure; actual billing varies by processor and contract, so tags read 'typically'.
• Sanity check bounds: Warn if effective rate is above 15% or below 0.5%. Source: Tool design assumption to catch data-entry mistakes.

Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.

How card payments usually look at a dental practice

Most dental card revenue comes from patient responsibility after insurance: copays, deductibles, uncovered procedures, and elective work like whitening or aligners. That creates a wide range of ticket sizes. A cleaning copay might be small, while a crown, implant stage, or ortho down payment can be a large single charge. Because so much volume sits in larger tickets, the percentage side of your pricing usually matters more than flat per-transaction fees.

Your payment mix also shapes cost. Front-desk payments with the card tapped or inserted are card-present. Payments taken over the phone, through an online bill-pay link, text-to-pay, or stored cards for ortho and membership plans are card-not-present, and these are often priced higher by the card networks. Many patients also pay with HSA or FSA cards and with rewards or premium credit cards, which carry different interchange costs. If your share of keyed or online payments has grown, expect your effective rate to drift up even if your contract has not changed.

Dental offices do not deal with tips, but they do handle deposits for large treatment plans, recurring monthly charges for ortho or in-house membership plans, and refunds when insurance pays more than estimated. Each of these can generate extra lines on a statement, so it is worth ticking every fee you see, not just the obvious ones.

A worked example for a hypothetical dental practice

Here is how the tool reads a statement, using made-up numbers for a single-location general dentistry office. Last month: $60,000 in card volume, 300 transactions, $1,950 in total fees, on a tiered statement. The free results would show an effective rate of 3.25% ($1,950 / $60,000), a cost per transaction of $6.50, and an average ticket of $200. Compared with the healthcare industry average used by the tool (2.65%, an assumption), that is 0.60 percentage points higher, so the status is Above the industry average.

In the gated breakdown, annual total fees would be $23,400 ($1,950 x 12), and the annual cost above the industry average would be about $4,320 (0.60 points x $60,000 x 12), assuming last month is representative. If the office manager also entered $1,020 in interchange and $90 in card brand fees, the estimated monthly markup would be $840, a markup rate of 1.40% of volume, and about 43% of total fees.

Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.

None of these numbers describe a real practice or any TouchSuite rate. They show how the math works so you can read your own results with confidence.

Fees dental practices should look at closely

PCI non-compliance fees: these often appear when the yearly security questionnaire was never completed, frequently because the person who handled it left the front desk. If you see this line every month, ask what is needed to stop it and whether you are also paying a separate PCI program fee.

Gateway fees: if your practice management software or patient portal takes card payments, you may be paying a gateway fee to the processor, the software vendor, or both. Tick it and ask who sets it and what it covers. Equipment lease or terminal rental: check the remaining term and total cost against simply owning the terminals at each operatory or checkout station.

Monthly minimum fees can bite in slower months or at a newer satellite location. Non-qualified or mid-qualified surcharges on tiered statements often land on keyed phone payments, stored-card plan billing, and rewards cards, all of which are common in dental. Chargeback and retrieval fees can show up when a patient disputes a charge they do not recognize, which is more likely if your statement descriptor shows a corporate entity name instead of the practice name patients know.

Picking the right month to check for your dental practice

Dental card volume tends to move with insurance calendars. Many offices see a rush late in the year as patients use remaining benefits, and a slower stretch early in the year when deductibles reset. Because the gated annual figures multiply one month by 12, using your busiest or slowest month can overstate or understate the yearly picture.

For the clearest read, use a typical month, make sure volume, fees, and transaction count all come from the same statement, and include every page, including any separate gateway or equipment invoice. If your effective rate comes back below 0.5% or above 15%, the tool will flag it, and the usual cause is a missing fee section or volume from a different month.

A good result for a dental practice is not just a low rate. It is a statement you can explain line by line: pass-through costs clearly separated, few or no processor-set fees you cannot justify, and no surprise charges tied to compliance paperwork or equipment you no longer use. If your results show fees you want a second opinion on, talk to a payments specialist at TouchSuite.

Frequently asked questions