Dental Financing: What exactly are My Options?
- What is dental financing?
- Types of dental financing
- Can I get dental financing with poor credit?
- Alternatives to dental financing
What is dental financing?
If you can't manage to pay for necessary dental hygiene all at one time, dental financing might be a choice. Dental financing comes in the form of personal loans, medical charge cards or even payment plans from your dental provider. Keep in mind that financing typically involves taking on additional costs, often by means of fees and interest that you will owe as well as the amount borrowed, so ensure that you comprehend the loans going in.
Types of dental financing
Several dental financing options might be open to you.
Personal loans
A personal loan may be used to pay for a range of expenses, including dental work or other medical treatments. These loans are usually unsecured loans, which mean the lending company doesn't require any collateral to secure the borrowed funds. Due to this, the lending company will typically consider many factors – including your credit rating and credit ratings – to determine whether you can repay the loan. It's also important to observe that some lenders could only offer loans for cosmetic dental work, so be sure that you understand how your procedure is classified before looking around.
If you've got lower credit ratings, you may end up paying higher rates of interest or might be denied financing outright. If you decide financing fits your needs, find out more about the process of applying for financing.
Here are three lenders to consider that specifically offer loans for medical procedures, including dental.
- LightStream – LightStream offers no-fee loans for medical expenses from $5,000 to $100,000. However with no preapproval process (along with a required hard credit check), consider LightStream only if you have best to excellent credit.
- Upstart – With Upstart, you are able to make an application for prequalification for loans that range from $1,000 to $50,000 (in many states). Upstart's loans have an origination fee as high as 8%.
- OneMain Financial – OneMain enables you to apply for prequalification for private loans ranging from $1,500 to $20,000. Note that OneMain's loans come with relatively high APRs, along with origination and additional fees, so make sure to look around and compare all your options.
Medical credit cards
Medical credit cards might be available to pay for healthcare treatments, including dental procedures. A medical credit card is very similar to a regular charge card, but you are only able to make use of a medical credit card to pay for healthcare – and just within a specific network of providers that accept the card.
As having a regular charge card, the card issuer will typically look at your credit history to determine if your application is approved. If you're approved for a medical credit card, technology-not only to pay a qualified provider for your medical or dental hygiene. After that, you'll owe the charge card issuer and make payments to it.
Some medical charge cards may come with a duration of deferred interest. When you can remove the balance within the deferred time period, you are able to avoid paying interest. But if you cannot pay it off within that time period – or create a late payment – you may have to pay for all the interest that accrued from the beginning of when you borrowed the cash. In that case, the accumulated interest often means treatment ends up costing you much more money than you expected – so make sure this is the right option for you before you apply for any medical credit card.
Intro 0% APR credit card
You may want to consider spending money on your dental procedure with a regular credit card instead of a medical charge card, though just like any use of a credit card to repay a large amount, there can be risks involved.
There are regular charge cards that offer an introductory 0% APR for purchases and balance transfers for a set period of time. After the introductory period ends, the card may have an APR according to your credit and other factors.
If you're able to remove the amount your debt inside the established time period – that is usually approximately 12 and 21 months – you could finance your dental hygiene interest-free. However, you can wind up paying interest on any area of the balance you don't have the ability to pay before the end of this period, or you could lose your intro rate if you don't repay according to the card terms.
Do dentists offer financing directly?
Some dentists may offer the opportunity to make an application for payment plans and in-house financing through third-party lenders. The terms and details will be different based on each loan company. Some lenders may offer loans that don't require anything down or which have a minimal deposit. And others might not require a credit assessment in order to be approved, but watch out for high APRs and costs.
Can I recieve dental financing with bad credit?
Getting financing if you have lower credit scores can be tough. Personal loans and credit cards typically need a credit check, and poor credit may cause a lender to deny the application or ask you for a higher interest rate.
Bad credit typically implies that you have credit scores toward the low end of the score range. For example, FICO, one of the primary credit-rating companies within the U.S., uses a selection of 300 to 850 for its base FICO