Collect a Credit Card from New Clients at the Time of Booking

Healthie supports the ability to require a credit card during the appointment booking process, helping providers reduce no-shows and ensure smoother payment collection. This setting gives providers more control over their appointment policies, particularly for new or prospective clients who are booking for the first time.

In this article, we walk through how to enable this requirement for specific appointment(s) — and share what clients can expect during the booking process.

Overview: Require a Credit Card on Booking

Require clients to enter a credit card at the time of booking, streamlining your payment workflows. Here are some key points regarding Healthie's workflow when requiring a credit card:

• This setting is configurable per Appointment Type.
• Applies only to clients not logged in during the booking process (e.g., prospective clients using a public or embedded booking link).
• Logged-in clients will not be prompted for a card at booking.

This feature minimizes booking friction for existing clients, while giving you added protection and payment assurance for new clients. In addition, it helps reduce no-shows and ensures payment methods are on file for future charges.

Enable Credit Card Requirement for Appointment Type(s)

Before requiring a credit card at booking, make sure that the appointment type is available for client booking.

To adjust booking settings for a specific appointment type:

• From your provider account, click the gear icon the top-right corner to access > Settings.
• Select Appointment Types from the left-hand menu.
• Locate the appointment type you’d like to edit.
• Click the Action Menu (three-dot icon) > Edit.
• In the side panel that appears, select or deselect "Require a credit card for booking"
• Repeat this process for any additional Appointment Types as needed.

Appointment Visibility Tips

You can also control whether an appointment type is visible and bookable to clients. This is especially useful if you want to offer different options to different audiences.

For example:

• If an appointment type is marked as "Only visible to clients with no groups," it will only be shown to prospective clients or those not yet assigned to a group.
• Existing clients who are assigned to a group will not see this appointment type, even if it's publicly available via link or embed.

This provides a flexible way to manage availability based on client status, and is especially helpful for onboarding workflows or offering introductory sessions to new clients.

Client Experience with During Booking

If a client is using a booking link for an appointment that is bookable, they will be prompted through the appointment booking flow. When reaching the "Your Information" section, a Credit Card Information field will apply.

"This appointment types requires a credit card on file prior to booking (this could be for co-pays, late cancellations, no shows, etc). Your information is securely encrypted, and we store all credit card details with the highest security standards."

Enter Payment Card - Required details include:

• Credit card number
• Expiration date
• Security code
• Zip code

Providers are notified of a new client booking, and can find both the appointment details and stored credit card within the newly created Client Profile. For security purposes, only the last 4 digits of the payment card will display.

Healthie integrates with Stripe for payment processing — you'll be able to directly charge or invoice clients with a credit card on file.