I would like to share information with you about a new extended financing option that should absolutely give Care Credit a run for its money–no pun intended. Prosper Healthcare Lending has just entered the dental financing marketplace. The parent company, Prosper Marketplace, has been providing financing for other healthcare verticals such as cosmetic surgery, bariatric, and fertility since 2009.

The big difference with Prosper is that you are not submitting an inquiry for a credit card. Loans at Prosper Healthcare Lending are simple installment loans with no retroactive interest and no prepayment penalties. Their online automated system makes it simple. You can fill out, submit an inquiry, and receive a decision in less than two minutes.

The provider fees to your dental practice are significantly less with Prosper. For extended plans, there is NO merchants fee to the practice compared to a 5% merchants fee with Care Credit. The interest free plan fees are also lower cost. For 6 months interest free to the patient, the practice pays 4.9% with Prosper and 5.9% with Care Credit. For 12 months interest free, the practice pays 8.9% with Prosper and 9.9% with Care Credit.

Care Credit                                                        Prosper Healthcare

$200-@20,000                                                  $2,000-$35,000

Revolving Line of Credit                                   Simple Interest Installment Loans

6 and 12 month 0% Interest                             6 and 12 month 0% Interest

26.99% Retroactive Interest                            No Retroactive Interest

No Pre-Payment penalties                               No Pre-Payment Penalties

Terms up to 60 Months                                   Terms up to 60 Months

Patient Rates from 14.9%                                Patient Rates from 9.99%

Inquiry Affects Patient’s Credit                      Inquiry does NOT affect Patients Credit

Patient must be on the loan                            Patient is not required on the loan

5% Practice Fee for Extended Plans              No Practice Fee for Extended Plans

When you review this information, I think you can clearly see significant benefits to your practice and to your patients. There is no question that for over 25 years, Care Credit has been the gold standard for outsourcing dental financing. But for treatment amounts over $2000, I suggest that you add Prosper to your armamentarium of financial options. You can call Cameron Crawford at 801-335-9188 or email him at ccrawford@prosper.com for more information.

In my experience, dentists do not understand the value of Facebook marketing and often minimize it as unprofessional or a nuisance. They almost always do not have the time or the interest to manage their Facebook page.

Well it is time to wake up and realize that Facebook can and should be an important driver of new patient traffic to your practice. The key is to understand how to use it. Posting information on office activities, charity events, “cutesy” photos, Halloween candy buybacks, etc.–while demonstrating an “active” Facebook presence–rarely seems to bring in new patients.

Facebook as a business service is no longer free.  There are two kinds of ads that you can pay for on Facebook. One type is a pay per click or pay per impression ad that can be seen both in a newsfeed on a mobile device or on the right-hand side of the desk top device.  These ads can be highly targeted to geography, age, gender, and income level. Over the last few years, Facebook has done an amazing job of collecting data on all of us!  The ad can promote a particular service like invisible braces, or sedation, or cosmetic procedures like whitening or veneers. You have to be careful with these subliminal ads because Facebook will not run them if they are considered too promotional.

The second option for an ad is what is called a “promoted or boosted” post. These posts appear on your Facebook page and discuss the same services or treatments as the subliminal ads. However, these posts cannot be as highly targeted as the pay per click or pay per impression ads. For these posts,  Facebook only allows age and geographical range.

So what is your strategy? I believe that these ads should be used as a two pronged approach. Use the subliminal ads to get the highly targeted people in your geographical area to Like your page. You can port these people to your Facebook page hoping that they will Like the page, or you can port them to your website. When you have increased the number of Likes – say to over 600-700 –  then you should start using the boosted posts to show prospective patients the services you are hoping to promote.

These days, I am comfortable with a marketing budget of 2-3% of annual collections. Facebook advertising definitely should be a part of that allocation. The costs for Facebook advertising are very reasonable, and you can set your own budget to your comfort level. This should be a slow and steady process, and in the beginning, be more about branding and name recognition. An interesting observation is that Google and Facebook actually work together. For instance, if you are branding your practice on Facebook using subliminal ads in your service area, and someone sees them continually,  when they go to Google to do a search–and see your practice listed–they will have familiarity which increases the odds that they might choose your practice.

I don’t believe that this is a job for a staff member.  It is technical and time-consuming and probably should be outsourced to a media professional. I am sure that you can find people in your town who do this. I certainly am also happy to make a recommendation.