There is a patient sitting in your chair right now who wants to say yes…
Maybe it’s the patient who hasn’t smiled with their teeth showing in ten years. They cover their mouth when they laugh and avoid pictures. They’re ready to finally feel like themselves again.
Maybe it’s the patient who broke a tooth months ago and has been chewing on the other side ever since. They’ve learned to live around it, but they know they can’t keep doing that forever.
Maybe it’s the patient with multiple failing teeth who is already changing what they eat because they can’t comfortably chew anymore. Food has become about what they can eat instead of what they want to eat.
Maybe it’s the patient with periodontal disease who is continuing to lose bone around their teeth. Their gums bleed and their teeth are becoming mobile. They know that without treatment, they may eventually lose them.
Maybe it’s the patient with an infection. They’ve been living through cycles of pain, swelling and antibiotics, getting temporary relief while the source of the infection is still there.
Or maybe it’s the patient riddled with advanced periodontal disease. Their mouth has carried a significant bacterial and inflammatory burden every single day. They’ve lost so much supporting bone that their teeth are mobile. They can’t chew properly anymore, so their diet has changed and getting adequate nutrition has become difficult. The disease has progressed to the point that the teeth can no longer be saved.
This patient doesn’t have the luxury of simply doing nothing anymore.
Something has to change. They need to eliminate the disease, restore their ability to eat and begin rebuilding their oral health. And now, because of how far the disease has progressed, the treatment they need may also be the treatment with the largest financial barrier.
These patients have very different stories, very different treatment plans and very different reasons for finally walking through your door. But every one of them can arrive at the exact same moment:
“I want to do this. I just don’t know how I’m going to pay for it.”
Then comes the financial conversation. This is the moment where I want every doctor, owner and team member to check their own mindset, because what you believe about financing can determine whether that patient ever finds out they have a way to get the care they just told you they want.
That fee is way too high.
There’s no way they can afford that payment.
I would never pay that interest rate.
I don’t want to put someone into debt.
Those thoughts may come from a good place. We care about our patients, and we don’t want to see someone make a bad financial decision.
But our financial beliefs are not our patient’s financial reality.
When we allow our own beliefs to decide which options a patient gets to see, we’re no longer giving the patient the opportunity to make their own decision. This is why, before I ever teach a team how to present financing, we start with the WHY.
Financing Can Be the Bridge Between Wanting Care and Being Able to Access It
When a patient tells us they want treatment but can’t pay for it in full, we have a choice in how hard we’re willing to work to help them find a path.
We can say: “Maybe check with your bank.” “You could look into a HELOC.” “Go home, talk it over and give us a call.”
Those aren’t bad options, but they’re homework. And think about who we’re giving the homework to: the patient who may have already spent years putting this off, who finally got enough courage to walk through our door, and who is sitting in front of us today, ready to change something about their health.
So when a patient tells me, “I want to do this. I just don’t know how I can afford it,” I don’t hear a no. I hear: “Help me find a way.”
That’s where financing becomes part of patient care.
Not because every patient should finance treatment, and not because every financing option is right for every patient, but because financing may give that patient access to care they otherwise couldn’t receive today. If we’re going to say that we fight for our patients, this is one of the places we have to be willing to fight for them.
Our job isn’t finished when we diagnose the problem. Sometimes patient care means staying in the conversation long enough to help them figure out how they’re actually going to get it fixed.
That’s the foundation behind what we teach at Treatment Closing Academy: don’t send a patient away carrying the hardest part of the problem alone when there may be a path you can help them explore right now.
Doctors, Let’s Talk About the Fee
I know this is where some of you get hung up, and I understand it. Some financing fees are high. Depending on the program, you may be looking at 5%, 10%, 15% or sometimes even more.
That’s real money. So let’s use real money.
You have a $30,000 case. The financing option available to this patient carries a 15% fee. That’s $4,500. Your immediate reaction might be: “I’m not giving away $4,500.”
Fair. But finish the equation. If that patient cannot pay $30,000 today and this financing option is what allows them to receive treatment, are you really choosing between $30,000 and $25,500? Or are you choosing between $25,500 and $0?
Now let’s take it one step further.
That’s one patient. What happens when it’s five?
Five patients with $30,000 treatment plans represents $150,000 in diagnosed treatment. At that same 15% financing fee, the practice would pay $22,500 in fees and collect $127,500. If those five patients can’t access treatment without financing and all five walk away? $0.
Now we’re not talking about whether you’re willing to give up $4,500. We’re talking about whether protecting that percentage could mean walking away from $127,500 in collected treatment, and five patients walking away without the care they came to you for.
That’s why mindset matters so much. These aren’t one-off conversations. Your team is having them over and over again: one patient this week, another next week, five this month, then five more. The belief that “those fees are too high” doesn’t just affect one case when that belief becomes the way your practice operates.
Consistency compounds. And it compounds in both directions.
Consistently helping patients explore every reasonable option can mean more patients receiving care and more treatment getting completed. Consistently deciding an option is too expensive before the patient ever gets to consider it can mean more patients walking out the door still needing the dentistry.
That doesn’t mean you blindly accept every fee. Know your margins. Know your numbers. Run your business responsibly.
But do the whole math.
The number on the financing fee is only one number in the equation, and behind every one of those numbers is an actual patient who came to you because they needed help. That’s why a percentage of a case that gets completed can be worth substantially more than 100% of a case that never happens, and why your team’s beliefs about financing matter long before anyone opens an application.
And there’s something else at stake here beyond the production: that patient still needs the dentistry.
“That Payment Is Going to Be Too High for Them.”
Maybe. Let them tell you that.
This is one of the biggest mindset shifts I work on with teams. We see the treatment amount and start doing the patient’s financial math in our own head.
We don’t know what’s in their savings account. We don’t know what their spouse makes. We don’t know if a parent offered to help. We don’t know what they’re willing to give up or move around to finally eat comfortably, get out of pain or smile without covering their mouth. And we don’t even know the payment yet.
So let’s stop deciding for them. Get the number and let the patient react to the real number. If they say, “I can do that,” great. If they say, “There is absolutely no way I can do $900 a month,” okay. Now we know what we’re fighting, and now we can help.
Maybe there’s another financing option. Maybe they can put something down. Maybe another term changes the payment. Maybe the doctor can appropriately phase the treatment, or there is another clinically appropriate option.
A payment that doesn’t work isn’t necessarily the end of the conversation. It’s information.
You cannot solve a number you refused to go get.
“But I Would Never Pay That Interest Rate.”
You don’t have to. And your patient doesn’t have to either. But your patient should get to make that decision.
Show them the terms. Let them see the rate. Let them decide. Maybe they look at it and say, “Nope. I’m calling my credit union.” Great. That’s their choice. Support it.
But “I wouldn’t do it” can’t become the reason the patient never gets to decide whether they would. Because we’re not the patient. We’re not living with their teeth, eating their meals, waking up with their pain or avoiding their pictures. And we’re not the ones who get to decide what getting healthy is worth to them.
Our responsibility is to give them the information and allow them to make an informed choice, including the choice to say no.
And This Is Where Training Matters
Believing in financing doesn’t mean much if the person sitting across from the patient doesn’t know how to present it. You can have five lenders and twenty payment options, but if your team member says, “Well... we do have financing... if you want to try that...” the patient can hear exactly how they feel about it.
The financial conversation deserves to be trained. Your team should know how to confidently talk about monthly payments. They should know how to ask a patient to apply and what options are available. And when the first option doesn’t work, they should know what to do next.
Not because we’re trying to get an application. Because we’re trying to get a patient access to care.
There is a huge difference between pushing a patient toward a financial decision and fighting for a patient who has already told you they want to get healthy. That’s what I want teams to understand.
When that patient looks at you and says, “I want to do this. I just don’t know how,” I want someone sitting across from them who cares enough, believes enough and is trained well enough to say, “Okay. Let’s see what options we have.” And mean it.
That’s the WHY. That’s the mindset. And that’s why the financial conversation is part of patient care.
We don’t make the decision for the patient. We fight to make sure they actually get the opportunity to make it for themselves.