CareCredit® Helps GetPatients in the Chairu

Because It’s AllAbout Getting the

Dentistry DoneB Y D O U G H A M M O N D

S E N I O R V I C E - P R E S I D E N T , C A R E C R E D I T

22 dentaltownOctober 2004

CareCredit® Corporate Profile

CareCredit® Helps Get Patients in the Chair....

Because It’s All About Gettingthe Dentistry Done

by Doug HammondSENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CARECREDIT

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23dentaltownOctober 2004

CareCredit® Corporate Profile

at the reservations desk noticed my luggage tags. She was thrilled totell me that without CareCredit her son would not have been ableto get braces.

At CareCredit, we tend to speak about the need for practices tooffer patient financing in general rather than promote CareCredit

specifically. I guess wefeel that if a doctorunderstands and buysinto the benefits ofoffering payment planoptions, we are thenatural choice. Andthat’s because we’reinvolved in the dentalcommunity and comehighly recommendedbecause we have theright product. I spokewith Dr. Sameer Puriand asked him why he

chose CareCredit and he told me, “Why should I give my businessto someone who may have a decent product, but is not involved? Iwould rather give my business to CareCredit because they choose toget involved in the dental community. They support continuingeducation, charities, and different organizations, includingDentaltown.” And, because we have developed a program centeredon how practices want to work with patient financing, not on howwe prefer to work with practices. And, maybe because we treat ourpartners how we’d like to be treated, with respect and consideration.

New Challenges Require New SolutionsToday, practices and patients are facing new challenges. Insurance

coverage is declining and benefits haven’t changed for years, yet thecost of dentistry continues to increase, technology continues toimprove, and dentists are able to provide patients with more

advanced procedures.Patients are more educated and are coming to the practicewanting a beautifulsmile — which meanselective, cosmetic care.All of this is resultingin patients having topay for more of theirdentistry themselves.To help patients withthese larger out-of-pocket costs, practicesneed to offer financing

solutions — specifically a monthly payment option. Consumers arecomfortable with credit and making payments. In fact, they oftenmake the decision to purchase items based on whether or not theyfit into their monthly budget, not the total cost of the product or

Not many people know that CareCredit was created specifically atthe request of dental practices. In the beginning, the founder ofCareCredit first owned a dental implant company and was asked bya growing number of doctors to provide a financing option theycould offer patients to cover the cost of implants. From theserequests, the conceptof patient financingfor dental care, and a new company —CareCredit — wereborn. So, even beforeCareCredit officiallybecame a company in1987, we have listenedand responded to theneeds of the dentalcommunity, dentists,and patients. Over theyears, we’ve held trueto this philosophy of“partnership.” Today, our goal is to anticipate the trends and thechanging needs of dental practices to provide solutions that make iteasier for patients to get the dentistry they need and want done.

A Win for the Practice. A Win for the Patient.It’s great to work for a company with a product that is such a

win-win: it’s as good for the practice as it is for the patient. This israre, because typically there is a trade-off. But not with patientfinancing. Over the years and across the country, I have personally seenhow offering patient financing can dramatically increase production,up to 50 percent!

And, I’ve seen accounts receivable drop from $100,000 to virtuallyzero. Others are enjoying the same type of success. I spoke with Dr. Tarun Agarwal about his experience, “The correlation is veryinteresting between practices that are doing well and those thataren’t. The first questionI ask practices who arestruggling is ‘do youoffer patient options?’and their answer isalways ‘no.’ It’s a directcorrelation because in today’s society, it’sall about monthly payments. We can traceabout 20 percent of ourincome directly fromoffering financing. It’sa huge part of mypractice.” The greatestreward, though, is when I get to hear a patient say that being ableto pay over time enabled them to get the care they needed. I can’t tellyou how many times people have thanked me for how CareCredit hasimpacted their lives. Just recently I was in an airport and the woman

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CareCredit® Corporate Profile

service. “Investing in dentistry is no different,” agrees Dr. TarunAgarwal. “Dentists need to get with the times and the times saypatients want convenience, they want payment options, they wantlong-term options, short-term options, with interest, without interest,that’s just the way everything is done these days. So, dentistryshould be no different.” So, for all of these reasons, offering patientfinancing makes sense. But, extending credit through the practicedoes not.

It just doesn’t make sense, from a cash flow and risk perspective,to offer patients credit through the practice. That’s whereCareCredit comes in. For the smaller procedures and for the largercosmetic cases. CareCredit has No Interest and Extended PaymentPlans, so there’s a financing solution for almost every case andalmost every budget need. And many doctors appreciate the factthat CareCredit is a revolving line of credit, like Dr. Sameer Puri. “Ithink the biggest advantage of CareCredit is it’s a revolving creditline. So if a patient needs more work, you don’t need to do anotherapplication.” In fact, because of the growing patient demand forcosmetic procedures, we’ve recently expanded credit lines to coverlarger treatment amounts. Plus, CareCredit is a non-recourse program,which means that if the patient is late making payments or choosesnot to pay their bill at all, the dentist is not responsible for that

A Quick Evaluation of Your Practice’s Financial PerformanceAccording to the 2002 report submitted by the American Dental Trade Association, it is estimated that 35 to 40% of all practices are operating

well below their production capacity and economic potential. If you answer “yes” to one or more of the following questions you may want to

consider adding CareCredit to your practice.

1. Do 20% or more of your patients decline, delay, or phase treatment? n yes n no

2. Would you like to increase the number of cosmetic procedures you do this year? n yes n no

3. In terms of percentage of total fees billed, has your accounts receivable increased over the past year? n yes n no

4. Is your team spending more than two hours a week billing patients and making collection calls? n yes n no

5. Did you have to write off more than 5% of your accounts receivable last year? n yes n no

debt. Any of it. Honestly, it’s hard to effectively bill patients, as Dr. Mike Esposito points out, “I don’t think there are many dentistsable to offer their own financing and do it well. If you can deal witha company that will allow you the luxury of handling it, it’s wellworth the 5 or 10 percent and probably more. It makes it so muchmore efficient to know that once the patient’s approved, themoney’s in the bank. There’s no restriction on time and you can doas much as you want —all in one visit.”

CareCredit has touched so many lives. To date, through our40,000 enrolled practices, we have helped over 2.5 million patientsget the treatment they need. That’s phenomenal dentistry. Whenthey need a new dentist, patients are now actively seeking out prac-tices that offer CareCredit.

Working Hard to Earn Your ReferralsWith this level of CareCredit availability it also means that about

1 out of every 3 practices has experience with the program. So, Iinvite you to log onto the Townie Board, and ask your peers abouttheir experiences with CareCredit. They will talk honestly anddirectly about products and services they like and don’t like. That’swhy being presented with the Townie Choice Award this past yearmeant a lot to the company and to me personally. Each and everyday, we work hard to earn your referrals — to patients and to peers.

I think we’ve proven this over the years, especially when you lookat what we’ve done so far. We introduced No Interest financing intodentistry. Then added Extended Payment Plans for larger cases andfor times when the patient prefers having more time to pay. We arethe only patient financing company that provides in-practice trainingwherever possible by real office managers who understand the needsand challenges that dental teams deal with daily. Because they’vebeen there.

CareCredit provides several ways to process charges, includingphone, fax, and internet options, so practices can choose the onethat is easiest for them. The patient can even apply on their own,over the phone or on the web. We provide resources for practices touse for patient education and for easier presentation of treatmentplans and fees. CareCredit created a digital media kit for practicesto use on their websites. We pioneered the online application,

“CareCredit won the Townie Choice Award forall the right reasons: Because they are aninnovative company that breaks down barriersfor your patients, they’re a local company thatsupports what we do, they’re a company thathelps your patients when they need help,they’re a company that provides new productsthat can help your practice out and they havethe service, support and materials to help yougrow your practice. CareCredit is an integralpart of any dental team.”

— D R . T A R U N A G A R W A L , D . D . S

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CareCredit® Corporate Profile

which gives credit decisions instantly. And, most recently, CareCreditgave dentists and their teams the ability to know in advance — beforethe appointment or fee discussion — if patients would be approvedfor CareCredit with our exclusive new Pre-Approval option. We trulyoffer a great product. And, we back it up with exceptional service.

Going Beyond the Call of DutyYou can tell a lot about a company by its employees. I’ve been

with CareCredit for 15 years. In fact, many of the people on ourmanagement, sales, and service teams have been with the companyalmost from its inception.

A few familiar names to the dental community are RachaelStutzman and Bete Johnson. They represent a team of dedicated,passionate individuals who are willing to go beyond the call of duty.That’s based on the feedback we get from our practices. When we’reat the conventions or seminars, we talk with many practices, andwelcome their feedback. We want to hear what they have to say. Ofcourse, we’re not perfect. But, the one thing we understand is thatresponses to problems need to be quick. Solutions need to be easy.And that dentists and their teams want the comfort of knowing thatthey can pick up the phone and talk to an individual who will doeverything they can to help them.

Time and time again, CareCredit has been the only patient financingprogram to have been exclusively selected by the ADA, AGD,AAOMS and AAP and most major state associations, consultantsand speakers. We’re proud CareCredit is the most endorsed patientfinancing program there is. It’s something we’ve worked hard to earn.

Just Wait. There’s More to Come.As proud as we are of how we have helped practices and patients

so far, we know our job is not done. We’re committed to bringinginnovation to dentistry. It’s important as Dr. Tarun Agarwal pointsout, “Innovation is about breaking down barriers. No interestfinancing, that’s certainly big. Pre-Approval, online applications,phone applications, fax applications, I mean those, to me, are innovations. It’s CareCredit as a company saying ‘we make it easy foryou.’” Just last year, we brought CareCredit to Canadian practices.Which again, was atthe direct request of Canadian dentistswho were aware ofCareCredit and how itis used here in the U.S.And now, we will be providing practiceswith direct access to patient financingthrough their practice management software. For the past year,DENTRIX® and EasyDental® users have benefited from this newseamless integration. And soon, KODAK PRACTICEWORKS®

Practice Management Software, KODAK SOFTDENT® PracticeManagement Software, KODAK ORTHOTRAC® Practice

Management Software, and KODAK WINOMS CS® PracticeManagement Software customers will have immediate access toCareCredit Patient Payment Plans. Here’s how it works —“CareCredit makes it easy for me! Now that CareCredit is integratedinto DENTRIX there are no forms to fill out. It’s a click of a button.And in literally five seconds we get an approval. Now that’s convenience.That’s seamless.” Practices using applicable practice managementsoftware will soon be able to simply click on the CareCredit patientfinancing button on the main navigation toolbar of their practicemanagement software screen. The patient application is automaticallycompleted with the required information, pulling data from thepatient’s information chart from within the practice managementsoftware. Practices then complete the process by simply filling in thecredit requested and clicking “Submit.” As Dr. Tarun Agarwal cantestify, it’s that easy!

This is big news! Something that has never been done before andis such a big benefit for the majority of practices that use practicemanagement software. And again, it’s CareCredit’s commitment toproviding practices the tools to use patient financing the way theywant to.

I guess I can sum it all up by saying that it’s all about helping getthe dentistry done. That’s what we care about. That’s what we do.It’s about helping the dentist, in a very caring way, providing financial

options to his or her patients. So theyschedule treatment, gethealthy, and refer morepatients to the prac-tice. Dr. MikeEsposito agrees, “Anycompany that canallow me to be perceived by patientsas even more caring,concerned and sincereis the company I’m

going to go with and that’s CareCredit.” As I said before, it’s a win-win for everyone!

For more information on CareCredit, call (800) 300-3046 ext. 4519,or visit carecredit.com.

From Left: Rachael Stutzman, National Sales Manager; Bete Johnson, Manager,Business Development; Doug Hammond, Senior Vice President.

Kodak, PracticeWorks, SoftDent, WinOMS, and OrthoTrac are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company. DENTRIX® and EasyDental® are registered trademarks of Sullivan-Schein Dental.

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