PATIENT SERVICE FOCUS

INCREASE PURCHASING POWER

CARECREDIT PROVIDES OPTIONS TO ELIGIBLE PATIENTS

SHANNON SIMCOX, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

IMAGINE THIS: Mr. Smith has undergone his comprehensive eye exam and you prescribe his refractive correction. Based on his refractive error and his day-to-day activities (construction work, avid outdoorsman) you discuss progressive spectacles, multifocal contact lenses and prescription sunwear. Mr. Smith tenses up as he calculates the total in his head. So, you offer him a financing option to split the payments over several months.

“You can almost see a relief that is like, ‘I can do this’,” says Eric White, O.D., who accepts such financing, through CareCredit, at his San Diego office.

OVERVIEW

CareCredit, from Synchrony Financial, is a consumer health care credit card. It provides financing options to qualifying consumers at participating doctors’ offices or businesses.

CareCredit has no enrollment fees. The doctor’s office pays a processing fee. Dr. White says this fee is comparable to those incurred from credit cards.

PROCEDURE

While Dr. White may discuss CareCredit, usually, the optician or front desk personnel presents the payment option. Peter Bae, O.D., Bronx, N.Y., follows the latter protocol. Dr. White gives the example of an optician introducing CareCredit to the patient: “Dr. White prescribed you computer glasses, regular glasses and sunglasses. We can put it on your credit card, we can put it on a Flex account, or we also can help you put it on a CareCredit account, which is a medical credit card…”

Signage, such as a website banner or point-of-purchase emblem, also brings awareness to the payment option. In addition, front desk personnel can make patients who call ahead aware of the option.

Interested consumers can apply in the office, either directly via the website or phone or through office staff processing the application through CareCredit’s website. Approval or denial is immediate; the consumers may then directly use CareCredit for their purchases.

TRAINING

Minimal training is needed to offer CareCredit. No additional equipment is necessary. Dr. Bae, who has been offering the finance option since 2008, says the company offers online tutorials.

PRACTICE BENEFITS

For the practice, CareCredit is an opportunity to increase per-patient revenue. In Dr. Bae’s experience, consumers make a larger purchase when this option is available. “Generally, they will go for the higher-end frame or lens option or a year’s supply of contacts, rather than a three-month’s supply,” he says.

Also, the financing option’s convenience allows the practice to compete with other potentially less expensive optical outlets, notes Dr. White.

PROVIDE FOR THE PATIENT

For consumers, CareCredit offers several payment options. Regardless of the payment option chosen by the consumer, the practice is paid the charged amount minus the processing fee within 48 hours.

While big-ticket items may prompt consumers to apply for CareCredit, once signed up, consumers continue to use it.

“It gives our patients some more flexibility in terms of being able to purchase the goods that they need in a more timely fashion,” Dr. Bae says. The ability to get — and utilize — their contact lenses or glasses straight away is a huge benefit for eye health, he says.

This opens up an avenue so that patients don’t have to be afraid to get what they truly need, Dr. White says. OM