There are lots of stories of medical school students and grads who chose to apply their medical knowledge to business fields. It’s rare — only about 10% do this — but those handful blaze trails of innovation that’s made managing runaway healthcare costs easier for all.
One such story is Alberto Casellas, EVP and CEO of health and wellness at Synchrony. In a conversation with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, Casellas spoke of how his grandfather, a doctor, inspired him to go the same route. This ultimately led the executive to disrupt healthcare payments.
“During my junior year, I chose to stick to my major, which was in a liberal arts school at Yale, and economics,” he said. “After doing all that work, the lab work and bio and chemistry and organic chemistry, I chose to remain in economics and focus on business.”
That choice allowed Casellas to “combine the passion that I had for medicine and healthcare with the passion that I have for business and helping consumers get the care that they need when they need it,” he said. Out of school and on the market, he saw opportunity all around.
CareCredit began life as DenCharge, a dental implant business that understood “for patients to be able to pay, they needed help because third-party insurance companies were not going to pay for everything. So, [DenCharge] began to lend consumers money, put them on flexible payments over three months, so they could go ahead with the procedure,” he said.
From that simple idea came CareCredit, a specialized credit card enabling patients to pay for costly human or veterinary treatments over time, making treatment possible.
Casellas said, “Since that time, we’ve expanded to over 250,000 healthcare provider locations and provide approximately 12 million customers a year the ability to get a procedure, be able to pay for it through flexible payments and being able to pay it over time. It grew from three-month payment plans to, in some cases, up to 72 months in terms of different payment options that we offer.”
It was a quiet disruption of how medical bills are traditionally handled, and well-timed for the pandemic era followed by the current inflationary implosion. It’s at such times that people forgo necessary medical procedures due to cost, and that doesn’t have to be the case.
By going in knowing that “half of it is going be covered by insurance, but the balance is going to remain on you,” he said consumers have the opportunity to “pay it over time in one of these flexible arrangements” that thousands of providers are extending with products like Synchrony’s CareCredit.
See also: Payment Plans Help Advance Patient Adoption of Telemedicine
Closing the Medical Cost Gap
Becoming CareCredit in 1987, the company took the DenCharge concept to other categories as out-of-pocket medical expenses began rising drastically, starting in the late 1980s.
As CareCredit began offering credit for veterinary expenditures, LASIK surgery and vision, audiology and hearing aids, the issue was almost always the same: patients needing procedures or medical devices they couldn’t afford — and closing that gap.
Casellas told Webster, “Whenever there is a large out-of-pocket expense, or emergency procedures that come up that you were not able to anticipate, being able to have that accessibility right at the provider’s office when they’re discussing these matters is a great way to get the care they need when they need it. Being able to say yes to a procedure instead of delaying the procedure or not doing the procedure at all because of issues related to payments,” is making a difference.
Demand today continues around emergency medical costs, but consumer patients are also finding medical financing very useful in affording planned procedures, and in creating more of a dialogue with providers about the person’s medical journey in holistic fashion.
“When those occur … where it’s a larger amount, it’s probably going to go into four figures [$4000 to $6000], and it’s one that can be planned in advance, we can help meet the budget of that particular consumer,” he said.
“As long as the conversation is occurring as you’re planning on the procedure and deciding what to do to best take care of your health, we completely agree that the transparency of it is extremely important to have between provider and patient.”
See also: 33% of Consumers Have Opted out of Needed Medical Care Over Cost
Impacting Social Determinants
Social determinants of health play a huge role in who needs healthcare and who can (or cannot) afford it, so Casellas didn’t stop with CareCredit when it comes to helping people be healthy.
For example, he’s been very involved with the work of Domus Kids, a Stamford, Conn.-based organization that works with at-risk youths, helping with everything from homework to healthcare.
Of Domus Kids, he said, “We take a holistic view of how to help the kids, whether it is food, providing a more stable environment, whether it is helping them at school, and helping them with what they may need emotionally as well as logistically.”
Casellas can relate to young people struggling, and moreover, the need to adopt good habits early in life that lead to better mental, physical and financial health for life.
“When I was younger, I came to the U.S. on my own, so I established certain habits early in terms of listening, and being consistent and disciplined,” he said.
He spoke of parenting and teaching young people, and “demonstrating the habits that I think are most beneficial in terms of being healthy. Thinking about yearly checkups, for example, and to not just talking about it or putting it off, but actually committing to setting up the time and doing checkups with your doctors.”
“Those are things that make common sense out there, but the important thing is to [committing] to them and creating the space within your own calendars, within your own families and doing that across the members of your family.”
COVID-19 has been an education, he said. It caused millions to think, “What are things I need to implement and change about my lifestyle as this pandemic evolves? We did not know as much as we did in month one versus where we were 12 months and 18 months in.”
What matters is that new lifestyle choices are working beyond the pandemic. When asked to share a story that illustrates how being able to afford healthcare is changing lives, Casellas told of one CareCredit user who was able to afford a hearing aid which made work meetings more audible, resulting in a promotion for this person.
“We love the smiles that we’re able to create for teenagers or adults,” he said. “There was a young man who needed dental surgery, but didn’t have savings to cover the procedure and because of CareCredit he got the treatment. He felt better physically and developed greater sense of self confidence as he started college. We have many patient stories and they are examples of how our strategy of helping consumers access the care they need or want is working.”
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
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