Patient financing - The Practice Owner's Guide

For “higher value” treatment plans, third-party financing often decides whether the patient says yes. The lender pays you upfront (minus a merchant fee) and owns the repayment risk.

The main options

Provider	Model	Typical merchant fee	Notes
CareCredit	Healthcare credit card, deferred-interest promos	Roughly 5-10% depending on promo length	Largest patient base; deferred interest can bite patients who miss the payoff date
Cherry	Point-of-sale installment loans	Varies by plan	Fast application at checkout, popular in dental and aesthetics
Sunbit	POS installments, high approval rates	Varies	Built for approving thin-credit patients
In-house plans	You carry the balance	Card-on-file + your default risk	Fine for small balances; for large ones you become an unlicensed lender, keep terms short

How to run it

Offer financing during the treatment-plan conversation, not after the patient balks. Train the front desk on a two-minute application flow. Treat the merchant fee as a cost of acceptance: netting 92-95% today usually beats a 40% chance of full payment over six months. Post the funded amount and the fee separately so reconciliation stays clean.

Compliance basics: present options neutrally (steering patients into credit they don’t understand creates CFPB and state exposure), never apply on a patient’s behalf, and keep financing out of Medicare/Medicaid cost-sharing decisions.