Shelley Clegg shares her advice for making sure your finance applications progress quickly…
The quicker a finance application can be approved, the better it is for your business and the happier your patients will be.
A speedy finance process means your practice will receive the cash flow injection of the money up front even sooner, while your patients will be excited to start treatment as soon as possible.
It’s a win-win situation all round.
More Zoom, more treatments, more applications
And it’s never been more important. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 there has been a big increase – nicknamed the ‘Zoom Boom’ – in the number of patients seeking cosmetic treatments such as Invisalign® and whitening.
We know that a lot of patients use finance to fund such treatments, so it’s likely that you may be receiving more enquiries for applications.
At Medenta, we’ve made the process as quick and easy as possible with our online application portal.
The portal allows you to complete the form in the practice in just a few minutes or you can send the patient an e-link to fill in the application at home.
It can also provide a decision within seconds – as long as all the information provided is 100% accurate. That’s where you come in.
Four simple tips to reduce delays
Making sure the application is filled in accurately is vital to keeping the process moving and getting a quick decision.
But in the busyness of day-to-day practice life, it’s easy for mistakes to slip through.
To help you avoid the frustration this can cause, I’ve compiled a checklist of some of the common errors we see that can lead to applications being delayed or incorrectly declined:
Wrong email address – it’s easy to mix up a .com with a .co.uk or mistype part of the email address. But a wrong address may lead to the patient not receiving important emails, which can result in a delay in their application.
Incorrect names – it’s important that a patient uses their official name, rather than any nickname or a middle name instead of a first name, on their application. A top tip is to tell your patient it needs to match what they have already registered with other financial organisations, e.g. their bank. It can cause delays if the name on their form doesn’t match the name on their bank account.
Old address – it’s surprisingly common for a patient to provide an old address. Sometimes this is because they haven’t lived in their current address for very long or they feel their most recent previous address will have more credit history, e.g. if they’d been living with their parents before moving out. However, the address must be up to date, even if they’ve only been there for a short time.
It’s also important to make sure that they’ve listed all the other previous addresses from the last three years, while clearly stating which one is their current address.
Wrong postcode – our application portal uses a postcode finder, which in the majority of cases will find the correct address when given the right postcode. However, in rare cases where the postcode isn’t found, you’ll have to type the address in manually. In these instances, it’s key that the postcode is accurate and that any flat number has an associate building name or number where applicable.
So, there you have it – four quick, simple tips that could make all the difference in speeding along your finance applications.
Of course, you can always contact our Medenta team who are on hand to help with whatever you need. And, as a Medenta customer, you can access our e-learning modules for more information.