Patients act on what you say. When you recommend a procedure, a certain type of lens, or a course of treatment, they tend to say yes. After all, the advice comes from the person they trust most with their vision care.

The CareCredit VisionIQ Study found that 61% of consumers identify their eyecare professional as their most trusted source of vision information—more than friends, family, search engines, social media, or any other source. The pattern holds across patient ages and income levels: They value your voice above all others.

This means your silence also has an impact. What you don’t bring up, patients may never consider. And in many practices, 1 subject keeps going unmentioned: how patients can pay for recommended care.

 Fill the Financing Gap With Your Trusted Voice

There’s a nearly 6x gap between patients who are open to using a healthcare credit card and those who do, according to the CareCredit VisionIQ Study, conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Synchrony. The study found that 43% of consumers are open to using a healthcare credit card to pay for vision care. Only 7% do.

Why the gap? The VisionIQ Study found that 37% of consumers say no financing options have ever been presented by their eyecare provider.

The silence is rarely deliberate. The clinical conversation fills the visit. Financing can become an afterthought that’s pushed to the next team member. The topic eventually falls off the list. To the patient, this absence can read as an unintended message: this care is important, but you’re on your own when it comes to paying for it.

This quiet misunderstanding carries a cost on both sides. Financial worry can delay an appointment, narrow the options a patient will consider, or stop them from moving forward at all. The practice loses clinically recommended care—and the revenue it generates—because of a financing conversation that never happened. 

 Include Financing in the Care Conversation

You’ve earned the credibility to close the financing gap. Patients trust your recommendations about care. Financing belongs in that same conversation, because it’s part of how patients can get the care you recommend. 

When raised early and matter-of-factly, financing changes the arc of the visit. A patient who hears about payment options early can weigh the whole recommendation, including the care they might otherwise rule out on cost. Knowing there’s an easy way to pay, like with the CareCredit health and wellness credit card, gives patients another way to move forward with care.

 Financing Resources to Equip Your Whole Team

The financing conversation may start with you, but it doesn’t have to end there. Encourage your whole team to discuss financing as another part of the care conversation. Here are tools from CareCredit to make that easier: 

• Cost Talk Toolkit: Scripts and tips so the whole team can raise financing at the moments that matter, from scheduling through follow-up. 
• Financial Page Toolkit: Ready-made website copy and banners that signal your practice offers financing before a patient ever asks.
• Payment Calculator: An interactive tool for your website so patients can see their estimated monthly payment.

Patients are ready. They trust you. Many may simply be waiting for the financing conversation. The good news is that it’s your conversation to start.

Patients said plenty about their vision care and how cost impacts it. See all their thoughts in the complete CareCredit VisionIQ Study, and don’t miss the list of additional tools to help you start the financing conversation.

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