One of the biggest expenses running our acupuncture clinic is merchant service fees. These are fees we pay banks each month to process credit card charges. Cryptocurrency is a form of money gaining broad attention in the world. Cryptocurrency could reduce healthcare costs by allowing patients to pay for services without generating bank fees. That’s a two to five percent decrease in healthcare expenses, a significant amount considering how much money we spend on healthcare each year.
What is Cryptocurrency?
According to Wikipedia, “Cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange wherein individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger existing in a form of a computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, to control the creation of additional coins, and to verify the transfer of coin ownership.”
I like the idea of cryptocurrency because it will allow my patients to pay for their acupuncture treatments without going through traditional banks. Banks make massive profits moving money around the country, acting as middlemen in commercial transactions for goods and services. Cryptocurrency has the potential of removing banks from the transaction equation, saving consumers billions of dollars a year in transaction fees.
Cryptocurrency Could Reduce Healthcare Costs
In our acupuncture practice, we currently pay between two and five percent transaction fees to banks every time we run a credit card through the machine at checkout. Over the course of the month, these fees cost us hundreds of dollars. If our patients paid for their treatments with cryptocurrency, we would be saving this money, which in turn would enable us to lower our fees.
Now imagine how this would impact a large medical practice or hospital. Every time they accept payment by credit card, they are paying two to five percent to the banks. Who do you think is ultimately paying for that? The patient, of course, as the costs are passed down the line in the form of higher medical bills.
Crypto Wallets
Another important tool we need to learn about is something called a crypto wallet. Crypto wallets are essential in our growing understanding of how cryptocurrency could reduce healthcare costs. Again, according to Wikipedia, “A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often also offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction, identification or legally signing a ‘document’.”
To use cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, we need to have a crypto wallet. If we want to explore how cryptocurrency could reduce healthcare costs, we must explore this new form of money management.
Cryptocurrency Prediction
I predict that businesses and healthcare providers, including Raleigh Acupuncture, will start accepting cryptocurrency for products and services in the near future. At the same time, I predict that banks and other financial institutions will be seeking ways to control this new form of monetary exchange.
We have to make sure that the banks don’t figure out how to cash in on cryptocurrency. They will be facing a desperate situation if cryptocurrency develops. Banks are some of the most powerful institutions on Earth. They won’t be happy to lose so much revenue without a fight.
Banks Enter Crypto Market
I imagine it will be like oil and gas companies investing in solar and wind power. Banks will attempt to control cryptocurrency, just as they have controlled dollars in the past. They will try to create new fees for this electronic form of exchange. I hope that does not happen.
We’ll still need banks – homeowners will continue to need mortgages, and businesses will always need loans. Others will continue to want the benefit of taking short-term loans via their credit cards. But the money lost on credit card fees will free up a tremendous amount of capital for consumers.
Next Steps
For now, we’re still using credit cards at the clinic and still paying the bank hundreds of dollars a month in merchant service fees. But the time is soon approaching when this may change – when cryptocurrency could reduce healthcare costs. The question is: Are we ready, as a society, to accept this new form of payment?
If you would like to make an appointment at Raleigh Acupuncture, you’ll still need to use your credit card for the time being!
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