Check By Phone

We have a member that is looking into medicine that the Dr. has prescribed but is extremely high. They have managed to find it Very much lower, but they only accept "Check by phone". is this something that the the Church can do? while researching what it was, According to NorthWest Community credit union, they call in and pay using a regular check. (https://nwcu.com/content/how-do-i-make- ... ne-payment).

I am not familiar with this at all and wanted to see if this is something we can do or not.
Thanks,
Mark M.

Questionable. What many of those places do is scrape the routing and account numbers off of the check and convert it into a different type of transaction (ACH? EFT?) - but the church blocks those kinds of transactions. They only honor transactions processed as an actual check.

At least that's how it used to be.

If the transaction is done by photographing the front of the check, then maybe it will be processed as a check and it will go though.

Jester_ag wrote:they only accept "Check by phone". is this something that the the Church can do?

As a ward or branch, you can only write a check. There are no other options if the ward pays directly (unless you are in a country where checks are not generally used).

I would also be concerned that if the prescription is found at a location that is "very much lower", there may be some question concerning the dispensing pharmacy and country of location, especially if it is a mail order pharmacy.

The bishop or branch president may wish to look into this further. He may also wish to have someone else (perhaps his Relief Society president) purchase the prescription, provide a receipt, and then be reimbursed from the Fast Offering funds as appropriate. Then the manner of payment to the pharmacy would not matter.

Another approach would be for the member to purchase the prescription, and for the bishop or branch president to provide other welfare assistance (such as food) that would free up funds for the member to do so. But now we are getting into things that the member's priesthood leader should have been trained on by his stake president, and that will be in the Handbook and other guidelines for providing assistance to worthy members in need.