Thursday, October 24, 2013
Which patient is more likely to say yes?
“Mr. Dawkins you told me you were interested in replacing that missing lower tooth. The best way I can do that for you is with an implant and a crown. The fee is $3,231.”
“Mr. Baxter you told me you were interested in replacing that missing lower tooth. The best way I can do that for you is with an implant and a crown. Your monthly payment will be $91.”
They both need the service and their dental health will be enhanced with the implant. The question is not one of need or benefit; it is all about the cost. If Mr. Dawkins believes he needs to come up with $3,231 in cash he may decide to put things off. On the other hand it is much easier for Mr. Baxter to start right now.
Making it easy for people to pay you will make it more likely they will in fact pay you—in other words, purchase good dentistry from you. As much as we might wish otherwise, case acceptance is part of providing good dentistry. After all, if the patient refuses treatment for any reason—including financial factors—then you have failed completely to help that patient.
True non-recourse patient financing was pioneered by Care Credit and they still dominate the field. However, in recent years Citi, Springstone and others have offered similar services. Digital technology has made patient financing better, faster and less expensive. Plus it can provide the doctor with actionable information to manage the practice more effectively.
For example, Care Credit has an online application that asks for basic demographics, name, address and phone number, plus a social security number and monthly income. It can be filled out in minutes. Online applications have several benefits. First, for the patient it is much easier and faster than the old system of filling out a paper form that needed to be mailed or faxed to the lender. It also is less intrusive than a phone application, it can be done in private from any computer 24/7, and in most cases the application is approved online within minutes.
From the lender’s perspective the applications are processed automatically saving the considerable expense of having a human enter data and then evaluate the application.
For the dentist the fewer roadblocks in the way of the patient accepting good care the better. You can direct the patient to the Care Credit web site to fill out the application on their own, or a better option is to have an application link on your practice website. This creates web traffic and can be used by any of your patients at any time in complete privacy.
On the other hand there might be a better way and this is where the statistics created by the use of digital services can be valuable. For example Care Credit has a practice dashboard with numerous reports including an Application Summary. This report tells you who applied, who was approved, how much they were approved for and where the application originated.
Offices find that the great majority of applications are the ones they help the patient submit either in the office or over the phone. That is the application is submitted online, it is just facilitated by a team member who asks the patient the information then enters it for them.
Patients may say they will apply from their home computer, but the data tells us they often fail to follow through. Without digital technology we would have no way of knowing this. Reports would need to be compiled by hand making them expensive and hard to get.
Other reports include a monthly statement, funding reports and basic activity such as the numbers of applications and the amount of credit available. Are your numbers good or bad? A quarterly bulletin compares your office totals to the top 10% in your area.
Of course all this is not free. The dentist pays a small percentage to the financing company. Some dentists object to this, but I feel that is just foolish. The fact is that in our modern economy, the cost of providing credit is simply a cost of doing business.
Credit cards charge a fee. If you carry the balance yourself you have the expense of billing and collections not to mention the occasional default. Or you may offer a cash discount. However you do it, there is a cost to getting paid.
The cost it seems is worth it. Numerous studies have shown that offering patient financing increases case acceptance by as much as 200%. If you fail to offer patient financing the most likely outcome is not that you would get the full fee but that the patient would do nothing and 95% of something is always better than 100% of nothing.
Helping patients say yes to fine dentistry in the future will include helping them find ways to pay for it quickly and easily. Digital technology will help. The future is coming and it will be amazing!