Loans to patients- more RESPONSES
Randy McFarland
Description
Collection
Title:
Loans to patients- more RESPONSES
Creator:
Randy McFarland
Date:
11/17/2007
Text:
Here are more responses regarding post I made asking for experiences
with companies like Care Credit that front monies to patients for
professional services.
I am the billing manager for our office any my boss asked me touch base
with you in response to Care Credit. We did sign up for CC and we used
it about 60 days before we turned it back in to the company as you have
90 days to change your mind. In that 60 days we tried to use it many
times for our patients and we could never get anyone approved to get the
loan. After being turned down so many times I decided to try to run an
application through on myself and it was turned down also. All I can
tell you is.... I have never had a problem getting credit, I own a home,
car, credit cards, etc. My beacon credit number was 774 at the time and
my credit was not good enough to use care credit. We sent it back to the
company at that time. If you decide to use it I hope it works better for
your office than it did for ours.
There is a big trick to CareCredit as a user. When you sign up for
lets say the 12 month option, the payment for each service date must
be made before the 12 month period or the interest kicks in with a
vengeance. You also must pay the monthly minimums. Lets say you
have 4 treatments of $1,000 each, and your monthly minimum is $150.
What happens is they automatically apply each monthly payment to all
4 service dates equally. What your patient wants is to apply all
monthly payments to only the first service date to extend their cash
flow. There is no way they will do it automatically, however they
will do six months at a time. So after the first service date, the
patient pays the monthly minimums and at 6 months, they call
CareCredit and ask for a redistribution or reallocation of their
payments to apply only to the first service date. They do this at 10
months again. The representative will usually lie to you saying the
will do it and they will not. Just call back and ask to talk to a
manager and the manager will do it over the phone. Always call back
to see if this has been performed. So when the 11th month rolls
around and payment is due for the first service date, all the minimum
payments that were originally divided into 4 and applied to the 4
service dates, now have all been applied to only the first service
date. The actual payment to pay off the first service date is more
manageable and quite small or may be nothing and the high interest
rate penalty is avoided. You just keep doing this for the 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th service dates in this example. Kenneth Carpenter.
with companies like Care Credit that front monies to patients for
professional services.
I am the billing manager for our office any my boss asked me touch base
with you in response to Care Credit. We did sign up for CC and we used
it about 60 days before we turned it back in to the company as you have
90 days to change your mind. In that 60 days we tried to use it many
times for our patients and we could never get anyone approved to get the
loan. After being turned down so many times I decided to try to run an
application through on myself and it was turned down also. All I can
tell you is.... I have never had a problem getting credit, I own a home,
car, credit cards, etc. My beacon credit number was 774 at the time and
my credit was not good enough to use care credit. We sent it back to the
company at that time. If you decide to use it I hope it works better for
your office than it did for ours.
There is a big trick to CareCredit as a user. When you sign up for
lets say the 12 month option, the payment for each service date must
be made before the 12 month period or the interest kicks in with a
vengeance. You also must pay the monthly minimums. Lets say you
have 4 treatments of $1,000 each, and your monthly minimum is $150.
What happens is they automatically apply each monthly payment to all
4 service dates equally. What your patient wants is to apply all
monthly payments to only the first service date to extend their cash
flow. There is no way they will do it automatically, however they
will do six months at a time. So after the first service date, the
patient pays the monthly minimums and at 6 months, they call
CareCredit and ask for a redistribution or reallocation of their
payments to apply only to the first service date. They do this at 10
months again. The representative will usually lie to you saying the
will do it and they will not. Just call back and ask to talk to a
manager and the manager will do it over the phone. Always call back
to see if this has been performed. So when the 11th month rolls
around and payment is due for the first service date, all the minimum
payments that were originally divided into 4 and applied to the 4
service dates, now have all been applied to only the first service
date. The actual payment to pay off the first service date is more
manageable and quite small or may be nothing and the high interest
rate penalty is avoided. You just keep doing this for the 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th service dates in this example. Kenneth Carpenter.
Citation
Randy McFarland, “Loans to patients- more RESPONSES,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 2, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/228745.
