How do you read a dental merchant statement and spot hidden fees?

Take one full month's statement. Add together all processing fees: interchange, assessments, processor markup, monthly fees, batch fees, and anything labeled PCI, compliance, or technology. Some statements split fees across a summary, a card type table, and a separate "fees" or "other charges" section, so add every one. Divide that total by your total card volume for the month.

1. Find your total card volume for the month (sometimes called "total sales" or "amount submitted").
2. Add up every fee on the statement, in every section.
3. Divide total fees by total card volume.

Example: $2,700 in total fees on $100,000 in card volume is a 2.7% effective rate.

Compare that number to what you were told you would pay. If the gap is wide, you are paying for something that was never in the pitch. Run it on three months if you can, since one month with an annual fee can skew the number.

1. Monthly fees. Look for statement fees, account fees, and minimum fees. Small monthly charges add up, and they are easy to miss across 12 statements.

2. PCI and compliance fees. A PCI non-compliance fee means the processor is charging you for a compliance step you may not know you missed, usually the annual PCI questionnaire. Ask what it takes to remove it.

3. Tiered pricing. If your statement sorts transactions into qualified, mid-qualified, and non-qualified tiers, your quoted rate probably only applies to the cheapest tier. Rewards cards, business cards, and keyed-in payments often land in the expensive ones. Interchange-plus pricing, where you see the card networks' cost plus one markup, is easier to verify.

4. Batch and per-transaction fees. Batch header fees and per-item charges look tiny and scale with volume. Multiply them out over a year before dismissing them.

5. Equipment and lease charges. A "free" terminal is not free if it arrives with a monthly lease or a long contract. Offices in manager groups report being pitched free terminals with no costs beyond processing, then asking the group whether hidden costs exist. Read the lease line, not the pitch.

Often not easily. Terminal leases are frequently held by a leasing company, not your processor, and many are non-cancelable for the full term.

This has gone to court. The New York Attorney General won a case against a terminal leasing company over leases sold to small businesses. A New York appeals court described non-cancelable leases that typically ran 48 months and cost far more than the equipment was worth.

What to check:

• A monthly line for "lease," "equipment," or "rental," or a separate bill from a leasing company.
• Who you signed with. The leasing company is often a different company from your processor.
• The lease term, early termination terms, and whether you signed a personal guarantee.

Your merchant processing report should match the payments recorded in your practice management system before you close the day. If the two do not tie out, the problem is usually how the processor posts to your software, not your front desk. A dental-only processor should know your PMS and make that reconciliation boring. See integrations.

A real review names every fee, states your effective rate, flags padding, and tells you plainly if your current deal is already good. If a review only tells you that you can save money, without showing the math, it is a sales call, not a review.

Summit Payments offers free statement reviews for dental practices. Send one month's statement and you get back your effective rate, every fee named, and a straight answer on whether switching would help. If you are already on a good deal, we will say so. If you are also weighing a card fee for patients, see should dental offices pass credit card fees to patients and our dental pricing.

One recent full monthly statement is enough. You do not need to send patient information, account numbers, or anything beyond the statement itself.