When people ask me about the genesis of Billink I start by explaining that I believe a payment solution for clinical practice needs to be more nuanced than a hight-street payments system. What works well in a clothing store or bar isn’t necessarily going to be the best solution for a busy GP practice or in consultant’s suite.

The pandemic and subsequent lockdown certainly highlighted the need for a better remote payments solution for me personally. I remember covering a colleagues clinic one morning when a call came through to reception. A patient looking to settle an outstanding fee. The practice was really busy that morning with a packed waiting room. My admin colleague on the front desk had difficulty hearing the patient at all! 6 mins later, after needing to repeat the patients card details aloud (twice)- the details were finally confirmed, and payment was manually processed through a non-integrated card machine.  A frustrating and uncomfortable experience for everyone involved – The admin team member, the patient, myself and probably the 8+ other patients in the waiting room within earshot!

This above story is by no means intended as a criticism of an overworked administrative colleague trying to cope in a pandemic. It is most definitely however a criticism of the payment systems that we have had to use until that point in practice. I knew there must be a better way. That evening I sketched out the outline of a fully integrated remote payments system and how it might solve known problems for both patients and practices. Three months later this sketch would become Billink Payments. Four months after that would reach its first 100 active practices.

Looking back over the past few years I’ve been incredibly fortunate

I was really lucky that shortly after graduating from General Practice training I was invited to work with colleagues in the ICGP, HRB, Department of General practice in RCSI and over 300 practices in the creation of the Irish Primary Care Research Network. This led to the opportunity to found my own healthcare technology business in parallel with growing our own family practice in Galway which had been founded by my father over 20 years earlier.

Our family practice was a fantastic testing ground for some early initiatives. The outcome? Products such as Gorilla Survey (primary care), the National GP Forum (primary care), Spectrum Analytics (pharmacy insights in the UK), and The Irish Prescribing Index (primary care and pharmacy distribution). Billinks evolved from all of these products and relationships.

An acquisition in 2016 by Clanwilliam Group of my analytics company and a new role as Head of Innovation gave me the opportunity to assist in the collaboration and development of both local and internationally connected systems at scale– from ePrescribing and Health-Mail in Ireland to claims processing and pharmacy systems in New Zealand.

Just prior to Covid, while completing my MBA in UCD Smurfit Business School, I took on the role of Head of Technology Innovation within Centric Health and it was during this time working directly with over 50unique practices that I saw an opportunity to fix what I believe is fundamentally broken within Irish healthcare – the lack of a fully integrated, secure payments platform.

So that was it – back to the ‘start up and build’ phase once again

Fast forward 10 months and with the support of friends, family and colleagues Billink is quickly becoming the go to place for remote payments in Irish Clinical Practice. Billink is now also expanding to include colleagues in Private Consultant clinics. Next year will also see the launch of an integrated patients terminal.

We continue to grow and evolve our service and welcome any and all feedback or suggestions for clients, practices, partners or future collaborators.