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 or medical bills 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.
Learn How to Increase Revenue and Retain Patients with Hassle-Free Healthcare Payment Plans!
Even with all of the financing available, patients have difficulty choosing the best option and can become overwhelmed by it.
Because of these reasons, we are sharing information about some of the leading payment plan companies that can be considered an alternative to CareCredit in this post. These details will assist you in making an informed decision about your healthcare payments.
Is Healthcare Financing Necessary?
Healthcare payment plans are essential to many individuals because of the high expense of medical procedures. People are hit with urgent medical issues when they least expect them. Many individuals need more money to pay out of pocket for life-saving procedures, such as surgeries.
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.
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.
One of the minor issues patients face with CareCredit’s medical credit card is its high-interest rate. Significant problems include the higher the amount you charge to the card, the higher the interest rates. Also, the fact that you have to pay off the amount over a more extended period adds to the psychological stress on the patient’s mind.
The higher interest rates over a longer time lead the patients to pay more than necessary. Moreover, patients must undergo a hard credit check when they apply for credit cards. So, you will only be accepted if you have a favorable credit score.
The Alternative Financing Options to CareCredit
Because of the shortcomings of CareCredit, as we have mentioned above, there is a need for patients and medical practices to have alternatives to it. Below are three of the best alternatives to CareCredit and their offerings.
ClearGage
ClearGage provides healthcare financing that helps both patients as well as medical practices. They allow patients to convert their medical bills into smaller monthly payments. They charge an interest rate starting at 9.99%, which may seem slightly higher but still less than CareCredit’s 14.9%. The lower interest rates help reduce the payment amount patients have to pay.
ClearGage offers medical practices various benefits, like sharing invoices directly on patients’ mobile devices and managing their payment collection. All this helps medical professionals focus more on providing good treatment and worry less about their payments.
The one downside of ClearGage is that patients still need to pass a soft credit check to qualify for their payment plans.
Ally
Besides being a full-blown financial services company, Ally also offers medical financing. They have partnered with various providers to offer 0% APR, which allows patients to pay no interest rate if they finance with a medical provider within their network.
The upside of financing your medical expenses through Ally also includes the following:
- No down payment or application fees.
- Budget-friendly payment plans.
- No impact on credit scores during the prequalification process.
While Ally's loan may seem attractive, they charge patients interest if they use a medical services provider outside their network. You would have to go through various formalities and procedures to apply for the loan in the first place.
Denefits
Denefits is one of the leading alternatives to medical credit cards, allowing medical practices to offer flexible payment plans at low-interest rates. We have a NO CREDIT CHECK POLICY and approve 95% of all your patients. With Denefits, patients can choose from different payment plans and choose the ones that suit their needs.
Apart from helping patients, Denefits offers many advantages to medical practices. These advantages include helping them increase their revenue through new patients, streamlining and automating payment processing, and offering automated debt recovery services.
The most significant plus point of Denefits is it approves almost all patients, even if they have an unfavorable credit score. So, if CareCredit rejects you, we will approve you. Also, we report the payments you make to the credit bureaus to help improve your credit score.
How the Alternatives Match Up
There are many options for healthcare payment plans 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.
Boost the affordability and accessibility of your healthcare services with Denefits' Healthcare Payment Plans
A reliable alternative to medical credit cards!
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 payment plan quickly and gets them to pay off their debt. The one downside to Ally is its limited range of options for payment plan.
Denefits are the easiest way to get payment plans since there is no credit check, no loaning of money, low-interest rates, and ease of payments. With instant approval for all, payment plans 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.
Advantages of These Healthcare Payment Plan Providers
| CareCredit | ClearGage | Ally | Denefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Provides medical credit card | Partial payment options | Easy Monthly Installments | No payment reserves |
| Easy payment options | Customizable payment plans | No down payment | Easy integration with website |
| Allows financing for pet's treatments | Send bills to mobile devices | No application fees | Instant approval within minutes |
| Available in over 240,000 locations | Large network of clinics | Dedicated support team | Multiple payment options |
| Convenient mobile app | Low monthly payments | Fixed APR | No hard or soft credit checks |
| 95% approval rate | |||
| No credit card or loan needed | |||
| Protected payments |
Choose Denefits for Healthcare Payment Plans
Learning how to use healthcare payment plans 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 software 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!
