Handling a membership cancellation

Cancellations happen. How you handle them determines whether you lose the patient permanently or bring them back. This article covers the dashboard steps, what happens to points and billing, and what to do before a patient actually leaves.

Cancelling from the dashboard

Go to Client Profiles and find the patient. Open their profile and select Cancel membership (owner-only). You will be asked to confirm before anything is processed.

The cancellation takes effect at the end of their current billing period. For example, if they have paid for the month and cancel today, they keep their membership access and benefits until that billing period ends. Stripe does not issue a refund for the remaining days unless you manually process one.

If a patient asks to cancel immediately and wants a partial refund for unused days, message us in the WhatsApp group and we can handle it on a case-by-case basis through Stripe. There's no built-in pause — cancel and let the patient rejoin later, or contact us for a one-off Stripe adjustment if a patient genuinely needs to skip a billing cycle.

What happens to their points and benefits

Points earned stay. When a patient cancels, they keep any points they have already accumulated. They can still redeem those points after cancellation, right up until their membership access ends at the next billing date.

Point accumulation stops. They stop earning new points the moment the cancellation is processed. They will not earn points on any visits that happen after the cancellation date, even if they visit before the end of their billing period.

Member benefits end at the billing date. Any discounts, priority booking access, or tier perks they had as a member stop when their billing period ends. After that date, they revert to standard (non-member) status in the app.

How Stripe handles the billing stop

Stripe cancels the subscription at the end of the current billing cycle automatically once you process the cancellation in your dashboard. You do not need to do anything in Stripe directly. The subscription status in your Stripe account will show as active until [date] and then switch to cancelled on that date.

If you need to cancel immediately and stop the next charge (for example, a patient contacts you the day before their renewal), cancel from the dashboard as normal and then message us so we can flag it to Stripe before the charge fires. Timing matters here, so reach out quickly.

Refunds versus disputes

These are handled very differently. A refund you issue from Stripe does not end the membership — it stays active. A chargeback or dispute the patient raises with their bank is different: it automatically ends the membership. If you get a dispute notification, message us in the WhatsApp group and we'll help you respond.

If a patient wants to rejoin later

When a previously cancelled patient rejoins, they sign up through your download link exactly as they did the first time. Their email address is already in your system, so the sign-up is fast. They start with a zero points balance unless you manually restore their previous balance, which you can do from their profile under Adjust points.

Whether to restore old points is your call. Many clinics do it as a goodwill gesture when a patient has been away less than six months. It costs you nothing and the patient appreciates it.

Proactive retention: what to do before they cancel

The best cancellation is the one that never happens. If a patient flags they are thinking of cancelling, before you process anything:

• Check their points balance. If they have significant unredeemed points, tell them. Many patients do not realise how much they have accumulated. "You have $45 in rewards sitting there" often changes the conversation.
• If cost is the issue, don't rush to cancel. There's no built-in pause, but message us and we can arrange a one-off Stripe adjustment for a patient going through a temporary rough patch — better than losing them for good.
• Find out why. A quick "Is there anything that would make it worth staying?" takes 30 seconds and sometimes surfaces a problem you can fix (a treatment they expected that is not in the app, a billing confusion).

Retaining one patient at $99 per month is worth more than acquiring a new one. It is worth the two-minute conversation.