I
t sounds almost too good to be true: a
credit card without interest for medical
expenses. But if you're losing out on
potential patients who can't afford sky-
rocketing insurance deductibles, it's no
longer a question of should you offer some type
of patient-specific financing plan. If the only thing
you say to patients about their payment options
is, "You owe $2,000 for your deductible and co-
pay. We accept cash, check or credit card,"
there's a very real chance your cancel rates are
going to spike as patients seek out care from a
facility that offers patient-financing options via
deferred-interest healthcare credit cards — usual-
ly a same-day approved card that lets patients pay
off a balance without interest as long as they do
so within a set number of months — and loans, a
more-traditional fixed-interest payment spread
out over several years.
How healthcare credit generally works: You
enroll your facility in the program, and the financer
supplies interested patients with proprietary credit
cards that they can use to cover co-pays and
deductibles (or private-pay surgery). The compa-
nies take an 8% to 10% transaction fee off of each
bill they finance, which is about 3 times higher than
rates charged by regular credit cards.
When a patient uses a healthcare credit card to
cover insurance fees, you're paid up-front — minus
the transaction fee — within a couple days of the
financing company receiving the bill. You don't
have to worry about collecting from patients before
their surgery — and trying to collect from them
after their surgery. That's right: no billing state-
ments or collection calls.
The financing company takes it from there.
Things are fine so long as patients pay their out-
standing balances on time at low or no interest
A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 3 9
Jared Bilski | Senior Associate Editor
5 Keys to the Perfect Patient Financing Plan
In an increasingly crowded market of healthcare lending companies,
here's how to pick the one that's best for you and your patients.
• APPROVED! Because healthcare credit card approval rates vary depending on medical specialty, you'll need to do your homework to find out which financing option is right for your
patient population.
Dulaney
Eye
Institute
