Memberships in the patient portal
Turn memberships on for your organization, understand what patients can do with them in the portal, and know how plan changes affect current members.
Memberships let patients pay for a recurring plan and use the visits, packages, or extras included in it. Use the Memberships settings page to turn the feature on, then use the Services page to build the plans patients can join.
How do I turn memberships on for patients?
In the left sidebar, click Settings. In the settings menu, under Billing, click Memberships. On the Memberships settings page, turn memberships on only after Stripe can take payments. Memberships bill a patient's card every month or year, so the feature stays off until Stripe is ready.
Use Settings (1) in the left sidebar, then Memberships (2) in the Billing section to get to this page.
- If you see Connect Stripe first, click Connect Stripe.
- Finish the Stripe setup. For the full connection steps, see Connecting Stripe for patient payments.
- Turn on Memberships.
- Click Save changes.
After you save, memberships are turned on for patient-facing pages and navigation.
What can patients do with memberships in the portal?
In the patient portal's memberships area, patients can manage their own memberships without calling your office for routine changes.
Patients can:
- see their current memberships
- review past memberships as history
- see plans that are available to join
- cancel a membership
For active memberships, patients can see the membership status and what the plan includes. Included services show what is left to use. If an included service refills each month or year, the remaining count is shown for that billing period. Custom items are listed, but not counted down.
Memberships also show what happens next. A membership can show a next payment date, or an end date when it is set to end after a fixed number of payments or has already been cancelled for the end of the current period.
If a membership is Past due, it still exists, but it does not cover visits until the payment issue is settled.
From staff views, owners and admins can also manage a patient's memberships. For staff-side enrollment, see Enrolling a patient in a membership.
How do I set up plans patients can join?
In the left sidebar, click Services. On the Memberships settings page, save memberships on first. After it is saved, the Services page shows the memberships area where you create and manage the plans patients see.
Use Memberships (1) to find the memberships area, New membership (2) to start a plan, and the existing plan cards, Annual Care membership (3) and Wellness membership (4), to work with plans already on the page.
Each plan needs a Name, Price (USD), and billing interval. You can bill Monthly or Yearly. You can also decide whether the plan ends When cancelled or After a set number of payments.
If you use a fixed term, Number of payments must be from 2 to 120. A one-payment charge is not treated as a membership.
Plans can include:
- services
- packages
- Custom item entries
Services and packages use quantities, and each quantity must be a whole number from 1 to 999. You can choose whether an included service or package refills each billing period or is available Once, in total. Custom items are listed for the member and are not counted down. Unused included visits do not carry over.
If you change a plan later, changes to price, billing, number of payments, or included items apply to new enrollments only. Patients who are already enrolled keep what they joined with.
For the full setup flow, see Setting up memberships and recurring billing.
What happens if I archive a plan?
In the left sidebar, click Services. On the Services page's memberships area, use Archive when you want to stop offering a plan to new patients without removing it from existing members.
Use Archive (1) to confirm, or Cancel (2) to dismiss the dialog.
Archiving a plan removes it from new enrollments. Patients who are already enrolled keep their membership and continue to be billed until the membership is cancelled.
This is the right choice when you want to retire an old plan but avoid disrupting current members.
How does cancellation work for patients?
In the left sidebar, click Patients, then click the patient's name. On the patient's memberships page, patients can cancel their own memberships. From the staff side, you can also cancel a patient's membership from that patient's memberships page.
Cancellation does not end the membership immediately. When a membership is cancelled, it runs to the end of the current paid period and then ends.
That means the patient keeps access through the current period instead of losing the membership the same day.
What can't I do here?
In the Memberships settings page and the related patient membership views, these limits apply:
- Staff and clinicians cannot manage membership settings from Settings.
- You cannot turn memberships on until Stripe is connected and able to take payments.
- A fixed-term membership cannot be a single payment. It must be 2 to 120 payments.
- Included service and package quantities must be whole numbers from 1 to 999.
- Unused included visits do not carry over.
- Changing a plan's price, billing, number of payments, or included items does not change memberships patients already joined.
- Archiving a plan does not cancel current members automatically.
- A Past due membership does not cover visits until payment is settled.
Common questions
Does canceling a membership end it right away?
No. A cancelled membership runs to the end of the current paid period, then ends.
If I change a plan, do current members get the new price or benefits?
No. Changes to price, billing, number of payments, and included items apply to new enrollments only.
Why can't I turn memberships on?
Memberships require Stripe to be connected and able to take payments. If Stripe is not ready, the page shows Connect Stripe first.
What does Past due mean for a membership?
It means the membership still exists, but it does not cover visits until the payment issue is resolved.
Should I archive a plan or cancel each patient on it?
Use Archive to stop new enrollments. Archive does not cancel current members, so use patient cancellation only when you need a specific member's enrollment to end.
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