The Power of PayFac as a Service for Patient Engagement Software Providers 

The healthcare landscape is rapidly shifting toward patient-centric digital experiences, and patient engagement software has emerged as a critical tool for providers looking to improve clinical outcomes, streamline administrative workflows, and enhance patient satisfaction. From appointment scheduling and automated reminders to secure messaging and feedback surveys, these platforms centralize interactions between patients and their care teams. However, one persistent friction point has remained: payment processing.  

Enter PayFac as a Service (PFaaS). By embedding fully compliant, end-to-end payment processing directly into patient engagement software, platforms can offer secure, seamless copay and balance payments within the same interface patients already trust. 

In this blog, we’ll first define PayFac as a Service in the context of patient engagement software, then walk through six game-changing benefits, spotlight a real-world success story with Dental Intelligence, and finally offer guidance on choosing the right partner and next steps for your team. 

What is PayFac as a Service? 

PayFac as a Service (PFaaS) is a modern payment facilitation model that enables software providers—such as those building patient engagement platforms—to embed and manage payments directly within their applications without shouldering the full operational and regulatory responsibilities of a registered payment facilitator. Instead of operating multiple merchant accounts, underwriting each practice, and maintaining compliance in-house, your platform sits under a master merchant account managed by an established PFaaS partner like Clearent by Xplor. 

For patient engagement software, this means you can offer secure, seamless copay and balance-due payments right in your patient portal or mobile app. Patients never leave the platform they trust—booking appointments, receiving reminders, and settling invoices all occur in one cohesive experience. Meanwhile, your PFaaS provider handles onboarding, KYC screening, PCI DSS, risk monitoring, and settlement reconciliation. 

What sets our PFaaS solution apart is its flexibility: we guide patient engagement software teams through an integration path that meets your needs today—whether that’s an out-of-the-box hosted checkout page or a fully embedded solution—and then scale up or down on controls (underwriting, chargeback management, custom billing flows) as your business evolves. You get all the benefits of a turnkey payments engine plus the freedom to gradually assume more or less of the payment lifecycle without uprooting your technology. 

Related Blog: What is PayFac as a Service? 

6 Key Benefits of PayFac as a Service for Patient Engagement Software Providers 

Implementing PayFac as a Service within your patient engagement platform unlocks transformative advantages—streamlining operations, accelerating growth, and enhancing both your brand and your users’ experience. Below, we break down the six most impactful benefits: 

1. Reduced Complexity and Lower Costs 

By leveraging a PayFac as a Service partner’s existing payments infrastructure, you eliminate the need to build and maintain your own merchant accounts, underwriting flows, and compliance processes. This dramatically cuts upfront development effort, ongoing maintenance, and the hidden costs of regulatory risk—letting you deliver payments functionality without expanding your technology or finance teams. 

2. Faster Market Entry & Seamless Patient Onboarding 

Traditional payment setups can add weeks or months to your launch timeline. With PayFac as a Service, patient engagement software providers tap into a pre-built merchant onboarding and underwriting engine. New healthcare practices—or individual providers—can be approved and transacting within days, not quarters, ensuring your platform drives revenue from day one. 

3. Scalability & Flexibility to Meet Patient Engagement Needs 

As your customer base grows across specialties, geographies, or care models (telehealth vs. in-office), a PFaaS model scales instantly. Volume spikes—from flu season to a new clinic opening—are handled seamlessly by the PayFac as a Service provider’s risk engine and processing network. You stay focused on delivering new modules (e.g., two-way chat, AI-driven reminders) while payments scale in the background. 

4. Put Your Brand Front and Center with White-Labeling 

Embedding payments directly into your UI—complete with your logo, color palette, and patient portal—reinforces trust and consistency. Patients never see third-party URLs or unfamiliar interfaces during checkout. Maintaining a fully branded experience not only deepens patient loyalty but also reduces drop-off at the point of payment.  

5. More Time to Focus on Core Platform & Feature Innovation 

Offloading merchant risk monitoring, chargeback management, and settlement reconciliation to your PayFac as a Service partner frees your product and engineering teams to innovate on patient engagement features. Rather than dedicating sprints to PCI compliance updates or gateway migrations, you can build new tools like outcome dashboards, in-app tele-health payments, or value-based care integrations. 

6. New Revenue Opportunities from Embedded Payment Processing 

Beyond traditional SaaS subscription revenue, payment-based fees create a usage-driven income stream that grows as your customers do. This alignment of incentives—where more patient visits or higher-value procedures generate additional payment volume—turns your engagement software into a direct driver of profitability. 

Success Story: Dental Intelligence’s Automated Merchant Onboarding 

Dental Intelligence is a leading end-to-end practice performance solution for dental providers. Their platform delivers actionable insights and automation to help practices increase production, boost visit volume, improve collections, and reduce administrative overhead—empowering dental teams to focus on patient care rather than manual reporting.  

The Challenge 

Before partnering with Clearent by Xplor, Dental Intelligence struggled with a manual and time-intensive payments onboarding process. They lacked an automated merchant boarding workflow, faced increasing overhead to maintain a non-automated solution, and encountered scalability roadblocks as they expanded their payment integrations. 

The PayFac as a Service Solution 

By leveraging Automated Onboarding one of Clearent’s PayFac as a Service a la carte solutions: 

Dental Intelligence integrated a hosted application page directly into their signup flow, enabling new practices to complete merchant onboarding and terminal ordering in minutes. 

The solution included built-in terminal deployment and hands-on integration support, eliminating back-and-forth with multiple vendors.   

The Impact 

Adopting Automated Onboarding with built-in terminal ordering and deployment drove dramatic results for Dental Intelligence’s users: 

Moreover, merchants were operational in as little as 10 minutes, accelerating time to revenue and improving overall satisfaction. 

“Clearent’s automated onboarding solution has revolutionized our equipment ordering and deployment process, leading to a substantial increase in our average processing volume per active terminal account by 1,500%. Our partnership has not only streamlined operations but also enabled us to scale effectively and significantly improve our revenues from payments.” 

— Tyler Barefoot, Payments Program Manager, Dental Intelligence   

This success story underscores how PayFac as a Service can transform patient-facing software platforms—enabling rapid onboarding, reducing operational burden, and unlocking new revenue streams. 

Decision Factors for Patient Engagement Software Providers Considering PayFac as a Service 

When evaluating whether PayFac as a Service is the right fit for your patient engagement platform, focus on these healthcare-specific criteria: 

How to Choose the Right PayFac as a Service Partner 

Not every PFaaS provider caters to the nuances of patient engagement software. To maximize impact, seek a partner with: 

By weighing these factors and selecting a PFaaS partner with deep healthcare expertise, your patient engagement software can deliver secure, seamless payments that enhance clinical workflows, improve patient satisfaction, and unlock revenue so that payments work for you. 

Wrap Up and Getting Started with PayFac as a Service 

Adopting PayFac as a Service empowers patient engagement software providers to modernize their payments workflows with minimal lift and maximum impact. By consolidating merchant onboarding, compliance, and transaction processing into your existing platform, you’ll reduce administrative complexity, accelerate copay and balance collections, and deliver a seamless, branded experience that keeps patients engaged and satisfied. As your platform scales across specialties, telehealth initiatives, and subscription-based wellness programs, a PFaaS model ensures your payments infrastructure grows with you—handling spikes in volume without additional engineering or compliance overhead. 

Ready to transform your patient engagement software’s payments? Contact our team today to learn how PayFac as a Service can accelerate your time‑to‑revenue and unlock new efficiencies. Schedule a personalized demo and discover the difference streamlined, embedded payments can make for your platform.