https://youtu.be/JX4v9A5ooRc

What role does patient financing play in helping patients receive the type of treatment they're looking for?

Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 144. To enjoy the full episode you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Jameson Files Episode 144 —How Patient Financing Meets the Needs of Your Patients

Carrie Webber:

Sameer is the Vice President of Alliances for Care Credit, what we believe to be the premier patient financing program in the dental profession and in other professions outside of dentistry. You've been in the arena for many years, Sameer, so today I want to talk about the need for patient financing from the perspective of your patients. We often think about how this serves me as the doctor, but I would like for all of us in the dental realm to think about what role does patient financing play in helping patients receive the type of treatment they're looking for? 

So Sameer, to begin, could you share with us a brief life history of CareCredit?

Sameer Baseen:

Absolutely. First of all, thank you for having me. This is a topic that I feel very passionate about, and I think you started out by stating it from a patient's perspective, right? Keeping the patient as the center point has always been CareCredit’s goal, and now we have been serving the profession for 35 years. Everything that we do literally always first asks what is best for the patient. And of course, what's best for our doctors and their teams too.

Talking about money is not everybody's comfort zone, and we understand that. So having the tools and resources always evolving according to the needs of the day serves our patients by helping them get the dentistry they want rather than having to put their health as secondary.

Demand for Patient Financing is Growing

Carrie Webber:

Right. So thinking of it from the patient perspective, I know that CareCredit and Synchrony do a great deal of continuous study. You really try to keep your finger on the pulse of consumer behavior—what patients are looking for, what are their obstacles to care, what seems to be the need. So for you, what is the demand for patient financing from the consumer standpoint that you all are seeing today in dentistry?

Sameer Baseen:

The demand has not been any different except that it has actually grown. More patients are more aware of their oral health and how it impacts their overall health. So they're more educated and asking for those options. Of course, when the economy is not doing well, patients don't want to use their cash. They still want and believe in the treatment that's being offered. But I think the biggest obstacle is our assumption that money, time and fear are always the reasons patients don't accept treatment. 

I would actually put the value of dentistry in there. Are we educating the patients enough that they understand why this is important for them before we ever talk about money and time and fear? 

So if you see that demand has increased, what is the real obstacle? If we are only focusing on if the patient gets approved for it, that means we have missed the mark somewhere. If the patient feels like they need to go have a conversation at home and discuss with somebody else, or they want to think about it, what did they want to think about?

In our profession, the value of dentistry has always been around an idea that if it's not broken, bleeding or hurting, it's not urgent. And I feel that when we look at where the profession is, where the markets are, where the consumers are, demand has been constantly increasing. But remember, one of the things I always say is people don't buy cars; they buy car payments. They don't buy houses; they buy mortgage payments. And in some cases the dental investment needed could be just as big as a car. It's just that when it comes to that kind of dollar amount,