BUSINESS

In the cards: Getting paid with plastic

Innovations in the credit and debit card industry are giving physicians new options for collecting bills.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Jan. 12, 2004.

Most practices are comfortable accepting credit cards. But how about issuing them? Or how about accepting a debit card attached to a health savings account? These new approaches offer the promise of faster, easier and more certain payment. But you should think twice before pursuing them.

Maybe you never thought of asking patients to sign up for credit cards to pay you. Now you can. A division of General Electric's finance arm is selling physicians on offering their own cards to patients. And another company suggests physicians take their patients' bad debt and use it as a springboard to a practice-centered credit card.

What both cards have in common is that, for a percentage fee, they offer physicians the promise of getting paid quicker, or at least reducing the need to send billing statements.

That was part of the appeal for one three-doctor group, Carolina Ear, Nose & Throat in Raleigh, N.C., to sign up with Anaheim, Calif.-based CareCredit, the division of GE Retail Sales Finance offering practice-based credit cards. The practice asks patients who have high deductibles, or procedures, treatments and other expenses not covered by insurance to consider applying for the card. Since March 2003, more than 20 out of 30 patients offered the card have taken it, said Gloria Bongiovanni, the practice's manager.

GE Retail Sales Finance, which owns CareCredit, declined to discuss its card in detail. The company did say that it is targeting high-dollar specialty practices instead of primary care practices.

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