Financing and Payment Plans that Help Patients and Practices Alike

Wellfit Technologies may have gotten its start serving dental service organizations (DSOs), but the company serves practices of all sizes, and its goal is to provide streamlined patient financing, dental plan management, and payment processing.

The Dallas, Texas company’s CEO Fulton Collins explains that Wellfit’s technology was designed to ensure access to frictionless dental financing through its Financing MarketPlace, dental plans, and payment processing. And while it was originally developed to serve a large DSO, it quickly became apparent that all dental practices could benefit from these services.

“I was brought in by the board which has extensive experience in the dental industry,” Collins says. “Wellfit is a company that was originally incubated in a large DSO, and the idea was that the products we offered, while beneficial to that specific DSO, would also benefit the dental industry as a whole. So, [we thought] let's really create a dental industry company that can help all dental offices, whether they're part of a DSO or independent channel and offices.”

Originally started in Orange County, the company moved to Dallas about three and a half years ago. Wellfit currently works with dental practices in 36 states with plans to continue to expand.

Earlier this year Wellfit Technologies announced a new partnership with Patterson Dental to launch its new CarePay+ solution. CarePay+ is a payment manager and patient care platform that will integrate directly with Eaglesoft practice management software.

“Actually, we had an investment made in the company by Patterson Dental a few years ago, and we partner with them and their Eaglesoft offices,” Collins states. “So, we have the opportunity to go into a lot of offices that are running the Eaglesoft legacy practice management system, and we're fully integrated into that product, which you know, obviously is beneficial to the offices and to us.”

Important to Patients

By now, most people are aware of the importance of good oral health and how it can be critical to one’s overall health. Most know they should see a dentist regularly and that taking care of needed treatments can prevent more serious and more costly problems down the road.

That said, not everyone has the necessary funds and sufficient insurance benefits to follow through with their dental needs. That’s where companies like Wellfit can have an impact.

“When I describe what I do, the question always comes up: what benefit is that?” Collins explains. “The number one thing I always throw out is that 60% of diagnosed dental work does not get done, and the biggest reason there is financial. If you look at that, you can say there's a great number of people out there who are really foregoing what I would say is healthcare because they can't afford it.

“That's the number one reason that an office should be offering finance. Now, I could get into greater granularity and say, ‘Well, it's good for the office because they increase their revenue.’ But I think, when you talk about offices in terms of services they will offer to their patients, if you can be full service, across the spectrum of what I'll say financial service products to your patients/customers, I think it just makes it much better for the offices.”

It's also much more efficient and convenient for all parties involved to be able to provide the needed treatments on the spot, without having to make a return visit later after figuring out finances. This is especially important in the case of a dental emergency, as not everyone can “just, put it on their credit card, or write a check, or whatever it might be,” he says.

“We want to give patients and the doctors the most help we can by providing them with choices. It's really about case acceptance and choices for the patient and building that doctor patient relationship,” Collins says.

Wellfit’s services also look to provide patients with convenience when it comes to making payments. He sees similarities in the medspa industry as well as dermatology and eyecare. Consumers and patients have needs and often need options when it comes to finances and payments.

“There’s a real need today, for consumers to be able to afford healthcare. The same thing is holding true in dentistry today that if you look at patients, there's really a need driven by multiple factors,” Collins says. “The first factor, there's a need to provide treatments and ability to pay for those treatments. Another factor is that the connection between your oral health and your overall health is not only becoming more important, it's becoming where the medical community as a whole is acknowledging it.”

Plenty of research in recent years has illustrated the oral-systemic link, with more patients aware that poor oral health can lead to serious health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases and more.

“I think what you're seeing is people who may have kicked the can down the road on getting dental treatments done and are now recognizing that their physical health is somewhat dependent on their oral health,” he says. “So, as you look at that, how does the dental industry provide more opportunities for patients to get treatments done? I think that's probably the primary reason, from my perspective, for Wellfit.”

Also, people today are offered a variety of ways to pay for products and services, and many of them expect these convenient options. Because of this, payments options are changing with the adoption of more technology and the access to those financial opportunities that have changed, and it will continue to change at a rapid pace, he adds.

The goal, again, is to help patients get the care they need and to help practices be more efficient and more successful by increasing case acceptance.

“What I would say is, Wellfit is really a partnership with the office. We help the clinician, whether it be in terms of their staff that they have, and help them do their jobs more efficiently and we create an environment that the patient is comfortable in,” Collins says. “I'm going to draw a parallel between going into a car dealership. If you needed to buy a car, you would meet with a finance and insurance person and then you would send an application individually to each of these finance companies. What Wellfit does today is provide a marketplace—and that's what we call it, our financing marketplace—that is an opportunity for a patient to fill out a single application. We can send it to the different financial institutions and allow them to get multiple answers in a much faster manner. That helps the physician, in many cases, do the treatment the same day that the diagnosis is made. And that's historically not how it was done. It's evolved.”

Technology has driven many of these advances and Collins expects this to continue.

“Obviously, technology is helping that evolution, but I do think that's going to continue to evolve and make things much more real time, and then the dentistry can get done,” he says. “The clinician feels good because they know they've helped the patient. Hopefully the patient feels good because they got the treatment done, and then they can have the opportunity to pay that over time.”

Having the financing and the payments taken care of up front not only leads to more timely case acceptance and the delivery of needed care, but the whole experience is better for the patient and the dental practice.

“I think it is a more dignified experience than historically, because we enable them to do it through an application. The patients don't have to interact directly with the benefits coordinator in an office or the front desk manager,” he concludes. “They can do it in the office, take care of it, get it done, and then move on down the road. It allows patients some privacy and dignity.

“We want to make a positive experience for everyone involved, and then increase efficiency. So that's really some of the main things we offer from a financing standpoint.”