My heart sank when the office manager at the oral surgeon's office asked how I'd be paying my $2,000 deductible: cash, credit or check. "With a loan from my parents," I thought. My son needed his wisdom teeth removed, but I didn't have that kind of money set aside to cover my large deductible. When I told her I'd have to cancel and reschedule, the manager mentioned a borrowing option that didn't involve hitting up Mom and Dad: a deferred-interest (read: zero interest) healthcare credit card.

I'd never heard of such a thing, but the manager assured me that enrolling would be quick and easy as she handed me the phone. She wasn't kidding. I applied and got approved in a few minutes. I used my new card number to pay the $2,000 and back to the suite my son went.

It seemed almost too good to be true, but it got even better when my first statement arrived about a month later. My 24-month deferred-interest loan really was essentially interest-free. Of course, free financing came with a not-so-small catch. The loan was interest-free only if I didn't miss an $84 monthly payment and paid it off in 24 months (the longest payback period this lender offered). Otherwise, the lender would have charged me all the interest that had accrued from the time of the transaction. That would have been an insanely high interest rate of about 26%. Fortunately, I didn't miss a month, so I wasn't slammed with a balloon payment at the end of the loan term.

Not only did a healthcare credit card turn my $2,000 deductible into 24 low monthly payments, but the oral surgeon's office made out, too. The lender deposited $1,802 into the practice's bank account within 2 days and kept $128 as a transaction fee (9.9% for a 24-month term). Plus, in me they had a happy patient to whom they didn't have to send a single billing statement nor make a single collections call.

From patient to provider

This happened about 10 years ago, a few years before I became the business manager at Hoffman Estates Surgery Center in suburban Chicago. Now I'm the one handing patients the phone (or giving them the website) so they can apply for healthcare credit. Whether they apply by phone or online, I tell them it only takes 2 minutes or 3 clicks to get approved.

Yes, it's hard discussing finances with patients, but here's how I explain our financing option to those who otherwise might have to forgo surgery because they can't afford their deductibles:

"Today we're able to offer you a credit card with deferred — and hopefully no — interest that will give you 6 months to pay for your deductible with convenient, low monthly payments."

You just gave the patient an easy way out of forking over $1,000 — and took away his reason to cancel.

Not everybody is approved, of course, but it's estimated that about 60% are, even those with low or poor credit scores. If a patient is declined, well, at least you tried to offer him a less-expensive option than a traditional credit card.

Locking in the patient portion

I'll never forget that helpless feeling I had in the oral surgeon's office when the cost of surgery was going to prevent my son from getting the procedure he needed. Who wants to be told that they can't have their procedure because they don't have enough money on the spot? But insurance has put so many of our patients in just that position.

It has also put surgical centers in a tough spot. On the one hand, you can't let patients proceed with surgery unless they first pay their deductible or copay, unless you're willing to spend time and money to (try to) collect on the back end. But on the other, your ORs can't sit empty because patients would rather delay a meniscus repair than tear into their credit limit with a big deductible. Better to limp than to skimp, they figure.

Healthcare financing throws us both a lifeline. Patients can go forward with surgery without worrying about paying large out-of-pocket deposits at check-in, and surgical facilities can lock in the patient-pay portion of their facility's revenue, a growing part of our bottom lines that you can't afford to neglect in today's healthcare landscape.

It's obviously great for your cash flow when the lender "reimburses" you in a few days whatever amount the patient financed — minus the transaction fee, which rises along with the length of the loan — but the hours we save not having to review accounts and call patients to collect balances is priceless. It almost feels like we've outsourced our patient accounts payable to our credit company. OSM