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Since the Beginning: CareCredit

Since the Beginning: CareCredit




CareCredit’s first advertisement appeared in
the September 2000 issue of Dentaltown











“For more than 22 years, our corporate culture has focused on three words: listen, respond and innovate. Dentaltown has helped us with the first – being able to listen to dentists and their teams and develop the programs and services they need to help them help more patients.”

– Doug Hammond,
CareCredit Senior Vice President of Sales		 For the last 10 years, support from companies like CareCredit, has been crucial to Dentaltown's success. In celebrating our 10th anniversary, we also celebrate these companies that have consistently supported us since the beginning. We talked to CareCredit Senior Vice President of Sales Doug Hammond to find out what’s new at CareCredit and how Dentaltown has impacted the company over the last decade.

How have things changed at CareCredit since 1999? What is the corporate culture like today, versus 10 years ago and how has Dentaltown impacted that?
Hammond: First, all of us at CareCredit would like to congratulate Dr. Howard Farran and his team on 10 successful years. A lot has changed since Howard had the vision for Dentaltown – a vision that enabled the dental community to connect through a forum where peers can freely share ideas and information and where companies can talk directly to their customers. That forum has facilitated the success of many practices and companies like CareCredit. For more than 22 years, our corporate culture has focused on three words: listen, respond and innovate. Dentaltown has helped us with the first – being able to listen to dentists and their teams and develop the programs and services they need to help them help more patients.

Over the past 10 years, CareCredit has also grown and, at the request of doctors, expanded into other health-care professions, such as vision care, veterinary medicine, cosmetic surgery and audiology. There are now more than 120,000 practices that offer CareCredit as a payment option and more than seven million patients who have used one of our payment plans to obtain care. Our growth is now directly generating growth for our enrolled practices. One example is our online Doctor Locator, which is used by about 350,000 patients each month to find a doctor in their community who offers CareCredit. These patients might have started with CareCredit in their veterinary office, and are now visiting a dentist they found on our Doctor Locator, using their established line of credit to pay for their dental care as well.

How has the relationship with Dentaltown strengthened CareCredit?
Hammond: Dentaltown makes us all smarter, both through the opportunity to connect doctors to each other and connecting doctors to companies like us. These connections benefit us all by helping us understand each other’s perspectives. In addition, Dentaltown has helped by giving doctors multiple ways to access the latest ideas and education so they can learn and grow. Through the Dentaltown message boards, Townie Meeting, Dentaltown Magazine and one of the largest libraries of online continuing education, doctors and their teams are able to access information to help them develop their clinical and management skills, which allows them to help more patients. By contributing to the educational content (online CE courses, audio CD programs, etc.) for Townies, we’ve become part of this community.

From CareCredit’s perspective, what sort of impact has Dentaltown had on the dental profession?
Hammond: Howard’s original goal was to make sure no doctor had to practice “solo.” And now, through Dentaltown’s “online portal,” teams can share ideas on all things related to dentistry and patient care, including clinical and practice management issues and companies can contribute to these discussions. Dentaltown tore down the barrier between companies and doctors and made it acceptable for us to have conversations in a casual environment.



Company Contact

For more information, visit www.carecredit.com, or call 800-300-3046 ext. 4519.
What is the difference between Townies and dental professionals who do not use Dentaltown.com?
Hammond: We have found that having the ability to share practical ideas with peers gives Townies a level of confidence that makes them innovative. They embrace new ideas and new thinking. And, they are very vocal and proactive with their compliments and complaints to companies. It’s this type of real-time, unfiltered feedback that is invaluable to new product development.

Explain what Dentaltown.com and Dentaltown Magazine mean to CareCredit?
Hammond: Because of our relationship with Dentaltown and the Townies, we have been able to hear and understand – first-hand – the issues that dental teams face, how CareCredit fits into their practices and what we can do to provide a program that helps more patients get care. This insight and input has allowed us to respond with practical, innovative products and services based on the needs and wants of doctors and their teams, such as online processing and instant credit decisions. While we’ve been privileged to earn many state and national endorsements, receiving the Townie Award for eight consecutive years is something special, because it’s our customers who are giving us the recognition of being the best financing program available.

What immediate changes are coming down the pipeline from CareCredit?
Hammond: We’ve listened to the feedback and input from dentists and their teams, and recently, because of the economy, we were told patients were requesting longer-term no-interest options. Because of that, we’ve added a 24-month no interest payment plan. Also based on input from dental teams and consultants, we created a Patient Referral Kit to help practices increase patient referrals. The kit includes tips, ideas, thank-you referral cards, in-practice referral displays and more. We also have a tool that lets dental teams create their own customized financial policy. We’ve also introduced a business review module that allows our team of national practice development managers to share with doctors key benchmarking statistics, practice metrics and ideas to help their practices grow. Over the next 10 years, CareCredit will continue to lead and innovate alongside partners like Dentaltown. Congratulations to Howard and Dentaltown on 10 great years!
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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