Healthcare fintech · Competitive displacement
2026
CERTIFY Pay
A healthcare payments GTM built to displace incumbents and activate qualified practices.
Practice teams might tolerate complex payment fees, slow onboarding and operational reconciliation until switching becomes urgent; a new offer must explain why it is worth the disruption.
Commercial impact
Commercial acquisition mechanism: competitive displacement of incumbent healthcare payment processors through practice ICP targeting, implementation and fee comparison, qualified merchant opportunities, underwriting, activation and retained net transaction/software margin. Gross processed volume is not vendor recurring revenue.
Relationship
Healthcare payments · Product-market initiative
Period
2026
At a glance / CERTIFY Pay
Differentiate switching economics, not just fees
Competitive displacement built around incumbent pain, buyer switching conditions and a qualified merchant activation path.
Healthcare payments positioning, competitor evaluation logic, switching-objection mapping, landing/search themes and merchant qualification framework.
Demand generation for a healthcare-first processor competes on continuity, integrated workflows, commercial economics and deployment confidence.
Market and commercial strategy
The buyer. The economics. The competitive move.
01
Who the business needed to win
Healthcare practices and multi-location provider groups reviewing card processing, gateway reliability, fee burden, collection and activation requirements.
02
How commercial value is created
Qualified practice → sales opportunity → processor underwriting → activated merchant → net retained processing income, platform fees and merchant renewal.
03
Competitive and market strategy
Competitor displacement against existing practice processors through switching-cost analysis, healthcare-specific collection workflows, rate clarity and go-live continuity.
04
My commercial and operating remit
Healthcare payments positioning, ICP/competitive research, battlecards, landing/search/email sales messaging and acquisition strategy; merchant contracting and fees have separate owners.
01 / Role and authority
The responsibility behind the decisions.
Worked on product-category messaging, healthcare ICP and buyer segmentation, competitor research and displacement framing, campaign/landing content, outreach and sales enablement. Merchant underwriting, processing economics and signed accounts remain commercial/finance responsibilities.
02 / Strategic and operating work
What the situation required. What changed in the work.
Clarify a standalone healthcare payment proposition
Separated the healthcare-first payments story from UnityPay’s broader merchant acceptance and CERTIFY Health’s integrated practice workflows.
More coherent entry points for practices evaluating payment-specific needs.
Position around the actual switching barrier
Developed buyer questions around processor friction, payment options, collections, implementation and comparison with incumbent solutions.
Displacement-focused campaign ideas and sales arguments grounded in practice operations.
Connect inquiry to activated merchant economics
Outlined lead qualification and sales follow-through through demo, underwriting, activation, payment processing and retained net revenue.
A more useful commercial measurement model than raw merchant enquiry count.
Working through the constraint
The operating decisions behind the change.
- 01
Segmented practices evaluating payment processing and differentiated standalone healthcare payments from general merchant services.
- 02
Compared alternatives on activation, fee interpretation, card-on-file, payment plans, collection workflows and merchant operating costs.
- 03
Mapped search, landing page, paid/email messaging and sales enablement to practice buyer objections.
- 04
Defined the commercial path from qualified enquiry to underwriting, approved merchant, activation and net retained processing economics.
What matters commercially
Commercial performance model.
The commercial operating measures used to evaluate this kind of assignment, from buyer qualification to retention and business value.
01
Displacement-intent demand
Processor-change signal → qualified practice account
02
Merchant activation
Application → underwriting → active processing
03
Payment economics
Net retained margin and platform fee; separate from gross payment volume
Next iteration
Tie payment enquiries and approved merchants to product-specific CRM and retained processing income before publishing a revenue KPI.
05 / What the case teaches
What this changed in the business.
Competitive displacement becomes credible when the alternative addresses the buyer’s switching costs, operational concerns and total economics—not when it simply attacks the incumbent.
Related work.
UnityPay
Separating merchant payment acceptance from healthcare-specific payment experiences.
CERTIFY Health
Giving a complex healthcare platform its own market, buyer and commercial narrative.
Exploring a similar market, customer or operating challenge?
Start a conversation