We accept MasterCard, Visa and CareCredit among other payment options for the services we render to you. We do this using the same fee schedule charged to those paying cash, even though we incur significant finance charges in doing so, as a convenience for our patients. We realize that many of you use this payment option to arrange your resources in a way that best suits your financial circumstances.
However, in using your credit card you may also incur significant finance charges if you do not pay the full balance on your statement each month. If you are in the habit of settling your balances in full each month so as to avoid any finance charges, paying for your dental treatment with your credit card could make this practice difficult. Depending on the provisions of your credit card contract, there is a way that you might be unaware of to make this situation less burdensome.
The majority of credit card lenders allow for a grace period between the time when you actually transact a charge and the time payment for that charge is due during which no finance charges accrue. Generally, there is about twenty-five days between the time you receive your credit card statement in the mail and the time payment for the balance reflected on this statement is due. Your statement lists the charges transacted during the previous month’s billing period or cycle and indicates the date up to which charges are included on that particular statement. This date is often called the closing date and your statement is usually put in the mail a day or two after this. This is why you normally have about twenty-five days between the time you receive your credit card statement in the mail and the time payment for the balance reflected on the statement is due. Remember, when you receive your statement it includes those charges you transacted throughout the entire billing cycle, from its beginning to its end. In other words, some of the charges you see listed on your statement when it arrives in the mail may be as much as a month old, depending on when in the billing period you made them. Yet, as long as you pay your full balance, finance charges will be sustained on none of them, no matter how far back into the billing cycle they occurred.
The larger point here is that the timing of any of our fees charged to your credit card can dramatically lengthen the time in which you have to pay them. It is possible for you to call the institution that has issued your credit card to find out where the closing date on your account will fall for the month in which you are calling or the next. This date is typically on or around the same day each month. Armed with this knowledge, you can schedule your treatment so that fees charged for our services to you are posted on your account no more than a few days after its closing date. In this way you can give yourself close to eight weeks in which to pay for any of our treatment that you placed on your credit card! Many of our patients have told us that this eases their financial planning appreciably. If you have any questions about this approach, please ask us.
IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILTY TO OBTAIN THE INFORMATION DISCUSSED ABOVE FROM YOUR CREDIT CARD ISSUER. IF YOU DO, IT CAN GREATLY INCREASE THE POWER OF YOUR CREDIT CARD PAYMENT OPTION!
