According to Forbes as of October 2021, 50% of Americans have medical debt. This is largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many people are struggling because of it. People need help to pay for their healthcare but struggle even when financing is available.
Lenders such as CareCredit are popular in this circumstance, allowing people to put all their medical bills on their medical credit card. However, while this can help patients, they are often denied due to poor credit and other disqualifying factors.
Even with all of the financing available, patients have difficulty choosing the best option and can become overwhelmed by it.
Is Healthcare Financing Necessary?
Healthcare financing is important to many individuals because of the high expense of major procedures. People are hit with urgent medical issues when least expected. Many individuals do not have the money to pay for life-saving procedures, such as surgeries, out of pocket.
According to Business Insider, about 54% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, barely having enough money to get by. With more than half of Americans living this way, medical expenses can be a huge hindrance. With people being able to finance, they can take a once large impending payment and turn it into multiple smaller ones.
This makes any procedure more attainable for anyone in every type of financial situation. Patients are able to receive procedures that can improve their quality of life which would not be possible without financing.
One of the biggest lenders in this industry is CareCredit. This company offers a credit card that patients can use exclusively for financing medical procedures. This can be very enticing to many since it acts as a normal credit card and can be charged as such.
They also offer multiple payment plans once the card is used, consisting of short-term financing from 6-24 months, as well as long-term from 24-60 months. However, CareCredit carries its own issues.
Smaller issues arise, like the card’s high-interest rates. There are bigger issues like putting more money on the credit card which accumulates more debt with the high-interest rates, as well as paying it off over a longer period of time with the debt hanging over the patient’s head.
With CareCredit, the longer the patient finances, the higher the interest rate will be, causing people to pay more money than necessary. Another issue that arises is that in order to apply for this credit card, a hard credit check is done and there is an approval process each patient would need to go through. This causes issues since some people will not qualify due to bad or low credit.
The Alternative Financing Options to CareCredit
ClearGage
ClearGage offers healthcare financing for patients that need help, as well as helping practices with payment processing. ClearGage does all the work for the practice, collecting payments so the medical offices do not have to track down the money and instead focus on helping patients.
Their interest rates start at 9.99%, which is a little higher than some personal loans but is still lower than CareCredit which starts at 14.9%. This would lower payments and help patients more. Although, a soft credit check is still needed in order to receive services.
Ally
Ally offers medical financing as well. Ally has partnered with certain providers to offer 0% APR, allowing patients to pay no interest if they finance with one of the partnered medical providers. While Ally does offer a great loan, they are only offering them with certain procedures and will charge interest if used outside of a partnered provider. The patient must also apply for Ally’s loan through the provider, which has caused issues for some.
Denefits
Denefits offers a great way to finance medical procedures in an easier way. Denefits offers to finance but not through loans or credit cards. Denefits offers payment plans with low-interest rates over a selected amount of time, making payments manageable and helping out the patient.
Denefits also help the practice because they handle collections and can even help with the accounts receivable, taking on a lot of the hard work.
Since they are not offering a traditional loan or line of credit, there is no need for any kind of credit check, and everyone is automatically approved.
This is hugely beneficial for those who are in need of financing and may not be approved by CareCredit or other lenders. As mentioned, Denefits does not require a credit check, but they do report the payments to credit bureaus which benefits the patient in building their credit.
How the Alternatives Match Up
There are many options for healthcare financing besides CareCredit that will benefit people. If the medical provider and patient decide to use ClearGage, they will be able to pay off their procedure with less stress and more manageable payments.
If the patient decides to use Ally, they will have to go with a more traditional loan, but with no down payment and no interest. This ensures that the patient can focus on paying off their healthcare procedure and not worry about anything else. This is also better than CareCredit because it gets the patient financed quickly and gets them to pay off their debt. The one downside to Ally is its limited range of options for financing. They will only finance select procedures, whereas other options will finance any operation you need.
Denefits are the easiest way to finance since there is no credit check, no loaning of money, low-interest rates, and ease of payments. With instant approval for all, financing is made easy for anyone who needs it. This is great compared to lenders like CareCredit who could take a long time to approve people and may not approve those who really need it.
Use Denefits for Health Care Financing
Learning how to use healthcare financing can be strenuous and makes paying for big medical procedures almost impossible. Typical lenders like CareCredit make the process feel daunting while making it harder to pay off the debt.
A company like Denefits makes the process easy and helps patients focus on paying off their debt as fast as possible.
Contact Denefits today to learn more!
