CareCredit® Corporate Profile By: Doug Hammond, Senior Vice President, CareCredit

Not many people know that CareCredit was created specifically at the request of dental practices. In the beginning, the founder of CareCredit first owned a dental implant company and was asked by a growing number of doctors to provide a financing option they could offer patients to cover the cost of implants. From these requests, the concept of patient financing for dental care, and a new company — CareCredit — were born. So, even before CareCredit officially became a company in 1987, we have listened and responded to the needs of the dental community, dentists, and patients. Over the years, we’ve held true to this philosophy of “partnership.” Today, our goal is to anticipate the trends and the changing needs of dental practices to provide solutions that make it easier for patients to get the dentistry they need and want done.

A Win for the Practice. A Win for the Patient.
It’s great to work for a company with a product that is such a win-win: it’s as good for the practice as it is for the patient. This is rare, because typically there is a trade-off. But not with patient financing. Over the years and across the country, I have personally seen how offering patient financing can dramatically increase production, up to 50 percent!

And, I’ve seen accounts receivable drop from $100,000 to virtually zero. Others are enjoying the same type of success. I spoke with Dr. Tarun Agarwal about his experience, “The correlation is very interesting between practices that are doing well and those that aren’t. The first question I ask practices who are struggling is ‘do you offer patient options?’ and their answer is always ‘no.’ It’s a direct correlation because in today’s society, it’s all about monthly payments. We can trace about 20 percent of our income directly from offering financing. It’s a huge part of my practice.” The greatest reward, though, is when I get to hear a patient say that being able to pay over time enabled them to get the care they needed. I can’t tell you how many times people have thanked me for how CareCredit has impacted their lives. Just recently I was in an airport and the woman at the reservations desk noticed my luggage tags. She was thrilled to tell me that without CareCredit her son would not have been able to get braces.

At CareCredit, we tend to speak about the need for practices to offer patient financing in general rather than promote CareCredit specifically. I guess we feel that if a doctor understands and buys into the benefits of offering payment plan options, we are the natural choice. And that’s because we’re involved in the dental community and come highly recommended because we have the right product. I spoke with Dr. Sameer Puri and asked him why he chose CareCredit and he told me, “Why should I give my business to someone who may have a decent product, but is not involved? I would rather give my business to CareCredit because they choose to get involved in the dental community. They support continuing education, charities, and different organizations, including Dentaltown.” And, because we have developed a program centered on how practices want to work with patient financing, not on how we prefer to work with practices. And, maybe because we treat our partners how we’d like to be treated, with respect and consideration.

New Challenges Require New Solutions
Today, practices and patients are facing new challenges. Insurance coverage is declining and benefits haven’t changed for years, yet the cost of dentistry continues to increase, technology continues to improve, and dentists are able to provide patients with more advanced procedures. Patients are more educated and are coming to the practice wanting a beautiful smile — which means elective, cosmetic care. All of this is resulting in patients having to pay for more of their dentistry themselves. To help patients with these larger out-of- pocket costs, practices need to offer financing solutions — specifically a monthly payment option. Consumers are comfortable with credit and making payments. In fact, they often make the decision to purchase items based on whether or not they fit into their monthly budget, not the total cost of the product or service. “Investing in dentistry is no different,” agrees Dr. Tarun Agarwal. “Dentists need to get with the times and the times say patients want convenience, they want payment options, they want long-term options, short-term options, with interest, without interest, that’s just the way everything is done these days. So, dentistry should be no different.” So, for all of these reasons, offering patient financing makes sense. But, extending credit through the practice does not.

It just doesn’t make sense, from a cash flow and risk perspective, to offer patients credit through the practice. That’s where CareCredit comes in. For the smaller procedures and for the larger cosmetic cases. CareCredit has No Interest and Extended Payment Plans, so there’s a financing solution for almost every case and almost every budget need. And many doctors appreciate the fact that CareCredit is a revolving line of credit, like Dr. Sameer Puri. “I think the biggest advantage of CareCredit is it’s a revolving credit line. So if a patient needs more work, you don’t need to do another application.” In fact, because of the growing patient demand for cosmetic procedures, we’ve recently expanded credit lines to cover larger treatment amounts. Plus, CareCredit is a non-recourse program, which means that if the patient is late making payments or chooses not to pay their bill at all, the dentist is not responsible for that debt. Any of it. Honestly, it’s hard to effectively bill patients, as Dr. Mike Esposito points out, “I don’t think there are many dentists able to offer their own financing and do it well. If you can deal with a company that will allow you the luxury of handling it, it’s well worth the 5 or 10 percent and probably more. It makes it so much more efficient to know that once the patient’s approved, the money’s in the bank. There’s no restriction on time and you can do as much as you want —all in one visit.”

CareCredit has touched so many lives. To date, through our 40,000 enrolled practices, we have helped over 2.5 million patients get the treatment they need. That’s phenomenal dentistry. When they need a new dentist, patients are now actively seeking out practices that offer CareCredit.

Working Hard to Earn Your Referrals
With this level of CareCredit availability it also means that about 1 out of every 3 practices has experience with the program. So, I invite you to log onto the Townie Board, and ask your peers about their experiences with CareCredit. They will talk honestly and directly about products and services they like and don’t like. That’s why being presented with the Townie Choice Award this past year meant a lot to the company and to me personally. Each and every day, we work hard to earn your referrals — to patients and to peers.

I think we’ve proven this over the years, especially when you look at what we’ve done so far. We introduced No Interest financing into dentistry. Then added Extended Payment Plans for larger cases and for times when the patient prefers having more time to pay. We are the only patient financing company that provides in-practice training wherever possible by real office managers who understand the needs and challenges that dental teams deal with daily. Because they’ve been there.

CareCredit provides several ways to process charges, including phone, fax, and internet options, so practices can choose the one that is easiest for them. The patient can even apply on their own, over the phone or on the web. We provide resources for practices to use for patient education and for easier presentation of treatment plans and fees. CareCredit created a digital media kit for practices to use on their websites. We pioneered the online application, which gives credit decisions instantly. And, most recently, CareCredit gave dentists and their teams the ability to know in advance — before the appointment or fee discussion — if patients would be approved for CareCredit with our exclusive new Pre-Approval option. We truly offer a great product. And, we back it up with exceptional service.

Going Beyond the Call of Duty
You can tell a lot about a company by its employees. I’ve been with CareCredit for 15 years. In fact, many of the people on our management, sales, and service teams have been with the company almost from its inception.

A few familiar names to the dental community are Rachael Stutzman and Bete Johnson. They represent a team of dedicated, passionate individuals who are willing to go beyond the call of duty. That’s based on the feedback we get from our practices. When we’re at the conventions or seminars, we talk with many practices, and welcome their feedback. We want to hear what they have to say. Of course, we’re not perfect. But, the one thing we understand is that responses to problems need to be quick. Solutions need to be easy. And that dentists and their teams want the comfort of knowing that they can pick up the phone and talk to an individual who will do everything they can to help them.

Time and time again, CareCredit has been the only patient financing program to have been exclusively selected by the ADA, AGD, AAOMS and AAP and most major state associations, consultants and speakers. We’re proud CareCredit is the most endorsed patient financing program there is. It’s something we’ve worked hard to earn.

Just Wait. There’s More to Come.
As proud as we are of how we have helped practices and patients so far, we know our job is not done. We’re committed to bringing innovation to dentistry. It’s important as Dr. Tarun Agarwal points out, “Innovation is about breaking down barriers. No interest financing, that’s certainly big. Pre-Approval, online applications, phone applications, fax applications, I mean those, to me, are innovations. It’s CareCredit as a company saying ‘we make it easy for you.’” Just last year, we brought CareCredit to Canadian practices. Which again, was at the direct request of Canadian dentists who were aware of CareCredit and how it is used here in the U.S. And now, we will be providing practices with direct access to patient financing through their practice management software. For the past year, DENTRIX® and EasyDental® users have benefited from this new seamless integration. And soon, KODAK PRACTICEWORKS® Practice Management Software, KODAK SOFTDENT® Practice Management Software, KODAK ORTHOTRAC® Practice Management Software, and KODAK WINOMS CS® Practice Management Software customers will have immediate access to CareCredit Patient Payment Plans. Here’s how it works — “CareCredit makes it easy for me! Now that CareCredit is integrated into DENTRIX there are no forms to fill out. It’s a click of a button. And in literally five seconds we get an approval. Now that’s convenience. That’s seamless.” Practices using applicable practice management software will soon be able to simply click on the CareCredit patient financing button on the main navigation toolbar of their practice management software screen. The patient application is automatically completed with the required information, pulling data from the patient’s information chart from within the practice management software. Practices then complete the process by simply filling in the credit requested and clicking “Submit.” As Dr. Tarun Agarwal can testify, it’s that easy!

This is big news! Something that has never been done before and is such a big benefit for the majority of practices that use practice management software. And again, it’s CareCredit’s commitment to providing practices the tools to use patient financing the way they want to.

I guess I can sum it all up by saying that it’s all about helping get the dentistry done. That’s what we care about. That’s what we do. It’s about helping the dentist, in a very caring way, providing financial options to his or her patients. So they schedule treatment, get healthy, and refer more patients to the practice. Dr. Mike Esposito agrees, “Any company that can allow me to be perceived by patients as even more caring, concerned and sincere is the company I’m going to go with and that’s CareCredit.” As I said before, it’s a win-win for everyone!

For more information on CareCredit, call (800) 300-3046 ext. 4519, or visit carecredit.com.