Benefits of Having a Complete Payment Solution
Dental offices with complete payment solutions remove a major obstacle that can prevent many people from getting treatment – affordability. Making it easier for individuals to pay for procedures, particularly more expensive treatments, can increase revenue through higher levels of treatment acceptance.
Having a comprehensive payment solution in place can attract new patients who’ve been unable to find good payment options elsewhere. And once they’ve found more affordable dental care, they’re likely to stay with that office.
Other benefits of having a complete payment solution include:
- The potential to begin offering more costly treatments your patients may otherwise be unable to afford.
- Improving cash flow by lessening the risk of defaults on payments.
- Eliminating middle man payments.
Benefits for Your Patients
Besides affordability, the benefits of a total payment solution for your patients include:
- Getting treatment when they need it.
- Better oral health – they’re more likely to keep appointments, including check-ups and cleanings.
- No hassle of having to apply for third-party financing.
- Avoiding heavy interest charges.
- No worries about having to find the cash to pay a substantial bill in one go.
- Credit score protection – if you use a soft credit check.
What Is a Complete Payment Solution?
A good total payment solution for dental offices typically includes patient payment plans and dental membership plans.
Patient Payment Plans
A dental payment plan makes treatment more affordable by spreading the cost over monthly repayments to fit patients’ budgets. It also opens up more treatment options, including cosmetic procedures that your patients may otherwise dismiss on the grounds of cost. Payment plans can also help you to attract individuals without dental insurance or with insurance that doesn’t cover the types of treatment they need.
Health Credit Assessments
A health credit assessment with a soft credit check can be incorporated into your payment plans to make it safer for your office to offer payment plans. It gives your office staff a convenient way to evaluate a patient's creditworthiness and take the guesswork and potential risk out of in-office finance plans, and it and won’t damage your patients’ credit ratings.
After determining which patients are eligible for a payment plan, you may be able to offer additional payment options to increase case acceptance.
Dental Membership Plans
Making treatment more affordable while bypassing insurance providers, a subscription-based in-office dental membership plan will appeal to prospective patients reluctant to go ahead with treatment because of financial concerns. Dental membership plans can help to build patient loyalty and generate new business from patients with no dental insurance or no dental plan with an employer – such as retirees and the self-employed.
The discounted treatments in a dental membership plan encourage patients to accept more treatments, which means better oral health for them and increased revenue for you.
An Alternative to CareCredit
A total dental payments solution including patient payment plans and dental membership plans avoids having to apply for third-party financing through resources such as CareCredit, with substantial interest charges.
As a healthcare credit card designed to ease the financial burden on patients of having to pay up-front for medical treatments such as dental care, Care Credit has its advantages.
However, the main problem with CareCredit is that your practice and your patients can end up paying huge interest fees. Another drawback is the risk of losing patients because they can't sign up immediately and have to go through the process of applying for financing.
Online Bill Pay and Text Payments
Besides patient payment plans and dental membership plans, complete payment solutions often incorporate online bill pay and text-2-pay options.
Online bill pay means patients are more likely to make their payments on time and it’s easier for your office to keep records, without saving patients’ credit card details. Patients get the convenience of being able to pay securely from anywhere at any time and can log in to check payment history and update their card information, instead of having to visit your office.
Text-2-Pay productivity software provides an innovative payment solution that makes it far easier for your office to bill patients and collect payments. It enables your patients to make payments via secure text links on any cell phone – without a dedicated app. As with online bill pay, this means they’re more likely to pay their bills in a timely manner.
What to Look for in a Complete Payment Solution
Complete payment solutions offer multiple benefits for dental offices and their patients. Yet not all practices offer them due to concerns about how to implement an efficient new payments system.
The solution? Find a provider that specializes in total payment solutions specifically for dental offices. They’ll have the know-how and experience necessary to give your practice the ultimate, easy-to-use, complete payment platform. And once set up with incorporated automated features, your complete payments solution will practically run itself, giving you and your team more time to focus on patient care.
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