Soon, mixed in with those continual mail offers for new credit cards, you might find a new kind of no interest loan being offered: one to cover that expensive piece of plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, Lasik, or dental work you cannot afford out of pocket, and your insurance doesn’t cover.
Eager to tap into a willing market of consumers who are already accustomed to credit card debt, more than 100,000 dentists and doctors are offering financing for patients customers who want services but cannot afford the upfront, out of pocket fees. And like most other credit card situations, the terms are attractive, as long as you don’t miss a payment.
But directly involving a doctor with the financing of a patient’s medical care, while perhaps a practical necessity in an era of low insurance coverage and high deductibles, seems to continue changing the doctor/patient relationship away from its traditional dynamic and towards one of consumerism, where a client finds a provider to perform services for a fee. The doctor moves from being a (hopefully trusted) adviser and partner in your healthcare to being the person willing to perform what it is you want done, a for-hire specialist.
And the for-hire is important to note; these no interest loans are only available to those with good to excellent credit. This means that the loans offer no help to those who most need it, the 47 million uninsured Americans whose difficult financial situations make them ineligible for the loans.
-Kelly Hills