Professional healthcare practices offer patients a wider range of services than ever before. With the increased demand for all kinds of elective surgeries, enhancement procedures, cosmetic surgeries, fertility treatments and many other procedures that are usually not covered by health insurance small business owners can lose out on a lot of business if they cannot provide some kind of financing to their customers. Very few small business professionals can afford to finance their patients themselves.

Most people who are considering any kinds of elective surgeries, expensive orthodontics or other costly procedures do not have cold hard cash to pay for them all at one time. It is not unusual for such potential clients to delay getting this work done indefinitely because of money. Whenever a healthcare provider can offer their services along with a finance program they increase the attractiveness of the complete package on offer.

Finance Options for Providers

If you are a small business that offers these kinds of services and expensive procedures to your customers, you should take a look at some partnering opportunities with major financers. By entering into agreements with those who specialize in this kind of financing you can offer your customers a solution that allows them to purchase your services sooner rather than later.

Consider these companies that provide financing programs for such businesses:

• Capitol One. This provider is a leader in healthcare financing. The American Association of Orthodontists endorses their financing programs for small businesses.
• GE Capital. This provider’s CareCredit program is used extensively throughout the USA and Canada by healthcare providers. This program is used by the LocateDoc.com website as well so that potential customers are made aware that they have financing options right at the time they are searching for your business online.

How Finance Partnerships Work

If you want to provide these kinds of financing plans to your customers, you will enter into an agreement with the companies that provide the funding.  This agreement will set out how the risk of bad debt from your clients is to be shared between you and them and how this is to be handled in the case of a default by the patient. Some agreements split the costs of bad debt equally and some place the entire load back onto you after the financer has failed to collect from your patient. You will want to be very clear on this arrangement before you start providing this option to potential customers.

The lender will process the application from your client and will get a credit report on them. Their credit score may affect the kind of interest rate they are offered by the lender. Clients with excellent credit may be given better terms than clients with fair credit.

Most healthcare providers end up giving a bit of a discount to the finance companies to offset the costs of administration and collection of the payments. If a patient has a procedure done that costs $1000, you would receive that amount less a percentage (usually between 4% and 10%) from the financer. They then take the responsibility of dealing with the customer in all the financing issues including collecting their monthly payments and chasing them if they fall behind.

Any clients who do fall behind in their payments on this type of loan can be subject to increased interest rates on their loan. In some cases lenders can increase the rate to as much as 28% when the account becomes difficult to collect on. Late fees and other penalties can also be charged to your client when they fail to meet the terms of their loans. Because the finance company takes care of all the administration and the collection process, they are the ones who keep any extra profits that are generated in these additional fees. Remember that you were already paid out for your services and anything else that is collected belongs to the lender.

The finance company will provide you with application forms and other paperwork that your patients will need to submit in order to get financing approval. They will do all the work involved in processing this paperwork.

Advantages to Your Business

One of the biggest advantages in offering a finance option to your clients is that you get paid right away up front for any work that you do.  You don’t have to have the financial ability to finance people on your own and administer payment plans over time.

Another good point is that you don’t have to wait for your customers to save up the money to have the work done so you won’t be doing as many consultations that don’t result in new business for you.

It does not cost you anything to enrol in a financing program with a lender and you do not pay them an annual fee either.

Advantages to Your Clients

Your patients can proceed with the work they want done without having to have cash on hand to pay for it. Most people can work the monthly payments for this kind of work into their budgets but they just cannot come up with the entire amount at one time. Financing options help them get the services they want when they want them.

Repayment can be financed for up to five years, so monthly payments can be very affordable and the interest rates charged are usually a fixed rate so that the monthly amounts will remain the same throughout the duration of the loan.

Once you contact a lender who can offer a good financing program to your clients you will want to be prepared. Businesses often see an increase in revenue relatively soon after implementing this kind of program. You will want to prepare yourself – business will be picking up and you are going to be busy!