Monthly payment plans can seamlessly fit the cost of orthodontic braces into the monthly budgets of patients without dental insurance.
Orthodontic financing options include personal loans, credit cards, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), and incremental billing by providers.
Patients with bad credit or no history can use their FSA and incremental billing to get treatment started without a down payment. Both feature guaranteed approval with no credit check.
Spreading costs out over time can help parents who lack sufficient savings to start treatment for their teenage children. The same holds for adults who want a more confident smile.
Payment Plans For Braces
Financing programs drive most monthly payment plans for braces. Patients without dental insurance covering orthodontia find these programs make treatment more affordable by spreading costs over time.
Choose between loans, credit cards, and Flexible Spending Accounts.
Loans For Braces
Personal loans are a popular financing option for patients without dental insurance. They enable monthly payment plans for braces. If approved, a third-party lender provides the money to begin treatment.
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A personal loan can help you pay for your orthodontic treatment. This financing option features fixed installments, meaning you will fully retire the balance according to an established schedule. Be prepared when completing the online form.
- Submit your credentials to an intermediary company
- The company markets the information to a broad lender network
- Volume helps to improve the likelihood of loan approval
- Show sufficient income and provide employment verification
- Provide bank routing and account numbers
- Verifies your identity and limits fraud
- Allows lenders to transfer money quickly
- Ensures prompt monthly payment
No Credit Check
A Flexible Spending Account (FSA) is a financing alternative with no credit check. Patients without dental insurance can self-create payment plans that reduce their costs by up to 38.95%. Also, those with adverse history on their report and those yet to establish a record find it easy to qualify.
The full amount you’ve designated for your FSA becomes available at the start of the plan year. Yet, for some plans, you can only tap into these funds after making your initial contribution. The FSA feature that permits the use of funds in advance operates similarly to a twelve-month loan from your employer.
Bad Credit
An FSA makes it easy to afford braces with lousy credit by lowering your tax bill while enabling a payment plan simultaneously. Patients with adverse history can qualify for financing without a lender pulling their consumer report.
Dental financing with bad credit through an FSA is possible because employers must accept all employees willing to participate and reimburse qualifying expenses immediately. Meanwhile, an FSA saves money in two ways.
- Employers cannot charge interest or origination fees
- FSA reduces the income subject to three possible levies
- Federal income taxes
- State income taxes
- FICA payroll taxes
No History
An FSA also appeals to young adult patients seeking payment plans for braces with no credit check. Many people in their early twenties have not established consumer reports with Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion.
First-time loans with no credit history are hard to get when the lender has no consumer report to check. You must demonstrate sufficient income to overcome a significant underwriting disadvantage and be able to verify employment.
Therefore, an FSA is the ideal orthodontic financing alternative for people without credit history.
Invisalign
For example, consider how an FSA-enabled payment plan for Invisalign with no credit check might work. Invisalign is a series of removable, see-through aligners that orthodontists often recommend.
The typical cost of Invisalign treatment for adults ranges up to $9,000, and it takes 36 months to complete. Therefore, the retail charges might be about $3,000 each year.
Contribute a maximum of $3,050 to the FSA during annual open enrollment. If offered, your employer must allow all employees to participate without a credit check and reimburse qualifying expenses immediately, giving you up to twelve months to repay the money with pre-tax dollars.
A hypothetical married couple with a combined Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $100,000 who work in California might cut their Invisalign costs by 38.95% or $3,505!
- Federal: 22%
- State: 9.3%
- FICA: 7.65%
Credit Cards
Credit cards also enable monthly payment plans for braces for patients without dental insurance. This financing option sends the money directly to the orthodontist so that treatment can begin immediately.
Credit cards are revolving contracts with flexible repayment terms, which means that balances could swell via interest charges if you revolve the account (pay less than the total amount owed each period).
Patients have two primary options.
- Many orthodontists offer medical credit cards such as Care Credit, sometimes featuring zero-interest promotional offers to qualified patients. Read the fine print about what happens if you still owe a balance at the end of the introductory period.
- Most orthodontists happily accept general-purpose credit cards, which work perfectly fine, provided you have sufficient “open-to-buy” (the difference between the account limit and the balance).
Local Orthodontists Accepting
Think before searching for orthodontists near your home who accept payment plans. Would you stop by your local bank branch and ask if they can install, adjust, or remove dental braces?
Of course, that would be silly. The bank would refer you elsewhere unless they have a clever workaround solution.
NewSmile Aligners
You will not find an orthodontist accepting payment plans closer than your mailbox. Some companies that sell directly to customers say they offer financing without a credit check as part of their services.
NewSmile promotes monthly payment plans through Affirm, a buy-not-pay-later finance company. In this example, the company behind the product and the orthodontist recommending the treatment get money upfront, while a third-party patient finance company provides the funding.
No Down Payment
Orthodontists advertising low monthly costs and no down payment for braces might be marketing a hybrid program with two components: third-party financing and in-house phased billing.
Third-Party
A third-party finance program probably allows orthodontists to offer no down payment for braces. Providers perform much of their work during early treatment phases, and the outside upfront money evens out cash flows.
- Medical and dental evaluations
- Bite impression study models
- Panoramic X-rays
- Computer-generated images
- Before photographs
- Appliance installation
In other words, these orthodontists are probably not starting treatment without a down payment because the finance company gives them money upfront. The patient pays the third party in installments over time.
In-House
Meanwhile, these providers might establish payment plans in-house without a third-party finance company. Most patients must visit their orthodontists every six to eight weeks for various services until treatment concludes after two to three years.
- Make tension adjustments
- Perform minor repair
- Remove the appliances
- Fit and fabricate retainers
These payment plans for the remaining charges are closer to incremental billing than financing, as the office sends invoices and provides products and services to the patient.
