What to do when third-party financing dries up

Oct 27, 2009

Editor's note: Richard Geller's column, Marketing Madness, appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.

Many doctors have historically relied on third-party dental financing to pay for larger cases. It was pretty sweet when so many companies approved substantial credit lines. The patient went ahead with larger cases, and the money flowed from the financing companies.

But no more.

Those companies have grown a lot pickier and are saying "no" quite a lot these days. And people are far less willing to borrow to finance even important restorative work in today's economy.

So what can you do about replacing third-party financing? It's dangerous to depend upon one source of financing, so I would suggest a mix of options.

Option one is to join a barter club. Seriously. You can avoid credit issues and dealing with insurance, and you can gain access to other goods and services from fellow businesspeople.

Bartering isn't going to replace third-party financing entirely, but it could help bring in a big case or two. And the trade dollars you gain can be used for services you need and use anyway, such as landscaping, legal work, and advertising.

Option two is to get prepayment or a significant down payment on work to be done on the next visit. Even partial prepayment for a needed service will help make sure the patient comes in and doesn't fail an important visit. There's nothing worse than an hour hole in the schedule because a patient who needed a crown failed their crown prep visit. You may lose the patient altogether, and you'll never regain the lost time.

Option three is to divide big cases into small, bite-sized pieces. The challenge here is how to present large cases in such a way that they can be done a little at a time, without the patient jeopardizing his or her health more than it already is in many cases.

For example, a new patient presents with significant periodontitis. The patient needs gum work. And crowns. And inlays, onlays, and fillings.

How do you avoid scaring away this patient? And how do you avoid judging the patient's ability to pay and having that affect your case presentation?

You might ask the patient. I recommend always starting with a compliment: "You really care about your teeth and gums. I want to compliment you on taking care of what God gave you" (or whatever approach suits your personality).

Then you can explain, "Certainly everyone wants to start out getting everything completely fixed and working great. We have a number of areas that are important. The major issue right now that I'd like to see fixed is the gum problems. Studies show that gum problems may contribute in a major way to overall health -- even heart health. So we should work on that first."

So now you've set the stage for not doing everything at once, and you've made the argument for what you will recommend. You could start out with one quadrant at a time, deep scaling with anesthesia, and maybe do one crown that really needs to be replaced. The important thing is to keep the patient motivated about coming back.

I offer a blog with videos on case acceptance and dental marketing at Cases4Dentists.com.

The comments and observations expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of DrBicuspid.com, nor should they be construed as an endorsement or admonishment of any particular idea, vendor, or organization.