The Art of the Yes: Simplifying Patient Financing (E.283)

Doctor, have you ever presented a treatment plan, offered financing, and still watched your patient walk out the door? You’re not alone. In this sneak peek into the PDA 2025 conference, Regan Robertson sits down with Marla Merritt, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at AcceptCare, to uncover the often-overlooked friction points in case acceptance—and how a single software solution is transforming the way patients say “yes.”

Marla shares her personal story of being a single mom faced with a $20,000 dental bill—and no payment options. Regan tells the story of a friend who couldn’t decide which financing to apply for, afraid multiple attempts would lead to rejection. These aren’t rare moments—they’re happening every day in practices like yours.

You’ll learn:

• Why most case acceptance problems come down to confusion—not cost
• How AcceptCare delivers pre-approved financing options without hard credit checks
• What practices like Clarksburg Dental did to jump from 22% to 55% case acceptance
• How to embed “yes moments” into your patient journey without overloading your team
• What one thing you should stop, start, and continue doing to grow in 2025

This is more than just a software conversation—it’s about building trust, removing shame, and making health decisions easier for your patients. Don’t miss this behind-the-scenes look at one of PDA’s most impactful strategic partners and how they’re helping practices grow smarter, not harder.

Transcript:

Doctor, do you wonder sometimes at the end of the month when you are reviewing your financials, where all that case acceptance is, you know, you’ve diagnosed it, you’ve given the treatment plans out, but you’re just not quite seeing the numbers line up. Well, if you do have this problem, you are not alone.

[00:01:45] Regan Robertson: In fact, thousands of dentists every single year struggle with this and it can really not only be frustrating, but you know, it, it can hurt because it’s not getting patients better health. Um, it, it can make you feel like you’re spinning your wheels and really it’s just unproductive. I do have a great answer for you today and in this week’s series we are doing a sneak peak interview with, uh, our alliance partners that are gonna be at the PDA conference in 2025, so March 13th through the 15th. And they are not vendors per se, they are partners with us because we know they have proven strategies and solutions that can help you work smarter, not harder. I would love you to meet today, Marla Merrit. Meet Marla. She is the vice president of strategic Partnerships at Accept Care and Accept Care is the nation’s leading. Patient acquisition software that empowers practices to provide a range of financing options tailored to various credit tiers. Before I jump in and say hi to Marla and dig into this, I wanted to share a personal story, uh, to give you, uh, an image. So if you close your eyes and I be your eyes and ears. Uh, I was with a friend of mine not that long ago, and he had broke a tooth in the back of his mouth and he had to get it extracted. It got to the point where it was so bad he had to have it taken care of. I went  to the dentist with him and as he was filling out all of the paperwork, it got to the payment portion. He knew he needed to get it out. He received a plethora of different financial ways to pay for it, which is great, right? I was excited for that, but he didn’t know which to apply to. Was it CareCredit? Was it this, was it that, so he started going through his phone and just going to the URL and and, and filling out these forms and the front desk person was so kind and she came forward and she was being helpful in the moment, but she said, “You know, don’t, don’t apply to all of them ’cause I, I just kind of editorially can kind of tell you that, that you might not get approved if you apply to a bunch. So just choose one.” That moment was so sad to me because one, he’d been applying, and two, I knew that there was a way that you could make it so unbelievably easy for someone to say yes and take the thinking out of it. So there was a really crunchy moment there where he didn’t know if he was gonna be able to even get the work done. We know the work needs to get done. It’s going to get the patient healthier. The dentist is passionate about it, but there’s this. It almost feels invisible and so doctor, if you’re listening right now and you do offer financial options, kudos to you, there might be something sitting in place that is actually creating a barrier that you’re not even aware of. So we are here today with Marla to talk about how to make it easier for patients to say yes. Marla, welcome to our sneak peek interview. I’m curious what. What got you interested in the first place in, in helping dentists solve this problem?

[00:04:35] Marla Merritt: Well, thank you so much for having me today, Regan, excited to be with you and it’s interesting, your story is, is one kind of story where I, there, there are multiple options, but they’re not just presented in a, in an easy workflow but for me, my personal story and what makes me passionate about what we do is I was in a different situation where I had to take my daughter for care when I was a single mom of four, and I was presented with one being surgery and braces and implants because she was congenitally missing two teeth and it was 20,000 plus and it was just kind of dropped in my lap that this is going to be 20 plus thousand dollars with no financial option presented at all. So as a mom, you know, you leave that appointment feeling so defeated and so not was, there wasn’t even one option offered to me. So I think that there’s the spectrum of, you know, are we just gonna see if they can afford afford it, and we’re not really gonna put any options at all in front of the patient, or let’s have a lot of, of options but, you know, is it, is it seamless like the experience that you had where it just, it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for the patient, so kind of, these stories really make up where my passion lies in accept care and, you know, we’ve been able to bring together a solution that that brings all the options together and makes it really simple for the patient to say, this is what our, you know, they find out quickly what they qualify for, and then they can see of the options that are presented, which ones meet their budget, because it’s really all about monthly affordability. Case acceptance is hugely about monthly affordability for each patient.

[00:06:27] Regan Robertson: I love that. Talk to me about the communication portion of it. I know you’re, you’re coming to the PDA conference and, and we’ve teamed up together to make that happen because there is the, there’s the, the patient acquisition software elements, so there’s the data piece of that, that’s how it actually works and then there’s the communication piece of it, and then there’s the team onboarding and you know, getting adoption in there. What are some of the things you’ve seen dentists and teams struggle with over the years that, um, you know, that this makes the combination of the communication and the software really powerful together? 

[00:07:03] Marla Merritt: One of the big things is just what you just said. If they have multiple third party financial options, they don’t know which one the, the patient is going to be approved for. Yeah. So let’s not put an offer or put an option in front of a patient when you don’t know if they’re gonna be approved. So what, what the Accept Care software does is there’s a, there’s a multi lender network attached to the software so that when a patient applies, they kind of put in just a couple pieces of information and we actually send it out to all of the lenders. They’re getting pre-approval, so they’re not actually applying yet. They’re we’re, we’re bringing them back. These are the ones that you qualify for, and then they can select from there what, what most closely matches. So that piece of communication where you’re worried that the patient may not be approved, that’s a very difficult conversation for a treatment coordinator. It, it just sets up discomfort for both the, the team member and the patient. So that communication piece is one thing that we help with. You know, just making that conversation a lot more patient-centric and, um, it, it really works by cutting a tablet in the patient’s hands. They can look at their options and they can review those and, and not feel like, I’m going to be denied because the options in front of them are what they’re approved for.

[00:08:24] Regan Robertson: That was that. You know what, that makes so much sense walking through that from a first person perspective, that that sort of holding the breath moment and not being sure if you’re gonna get approved or not and you’re sitting either in a public waiting room or you know you are, you’re just in front of others and it can be really, really embarrassing. So do you think that this helps kind of lower that stigma a little bit?

[00:08:45] Marla Merritt: Yeah, it absolutely does and, and that’s very important and you know, the goal being let’s get a same day start while they’re here before they go get a second opinion. Let’s get them committed. So whether they’re a either able to start or at least a same-day contract, let’s, let’s get them financially committed even if need, we need to schedule to start but we still know that sometimes that isn’t possible. Sometimes a patient needs to go home and talk to a spouse or, you know, review their bank account a little bit and see what they can do and so we think that that’s really the second communication piece that accept care helps to address practices always intend to follow up but let’s be honest, you know, you get busy and oh yeah, the best intentions. So what accept care does is it every patient, if they are not accepting, if you’re not getting the same day contract, they are put into a pending patient loop and they’re gonna receive follow up texts and emails from the, the, the doctor through accept care saying, “Hey, just a reminder about your pending treatment,” and they’re actually able to view all those financial options from home and accept from home. That’s kind of that second communication piece that practices are so busy and we get it. So let’s, let’s put something in place to make sure that that patient is being touched if they don’t accept that day.

[00:10:06] Regan Robertson: What I absolutely love, uh, that you brought into this is I know when I’m at the conference and, and I’m presenting, so authentic marketing is my, is my particular realm of, of goodness. And I’ve mapped out 21 steps in that dental patient journey from the moment that. They, you know, hear, hear about your practice from wherever that comes from to all the touches it takes to schedule an appointment. What happens when they get into the practice going in the treatment room, even visiting the bathroom? I’ve got it all completely mapped out, so you and I both know that, that except care fits one particular element and really the power from what I can find and 14 years at PDA has taught me is that the integrity and quality and authentic interaction in each intersection really wins loyalty. It wins the case. I mean, it really pushes it over to that next end and, and it creates really happy patience as well. I know you’ve been to the conference before, uh, and so I was wondering if you could share with us. How you see this fitting in, like why does it make sense that we would have someone like accept care at the conference knowing that that patient is going through all different interactions throughout their, um, you know, about their appointment and their experience?

[00:11:19] Marla Merritt: Yeah, so one of the things that I just love about the PDA conference is that you have selected vendors that you know work will work to help the patient, the practice along on those various points. You know, the things that you think are important for a practice. You have vendors there or you know, companies there that can help them in those various pieces. So with accept care, you know, that’s a, the patient journey. Again, a lot of it is based on am I able to accept treatment and is the practice able to grow because each patient can accept treatment and that all kind of tracks back to are you making it affordable? And so, um, I really think that the reason we were selected to be part of of PDA is, you know, we’ve, we’ve worked with a few of your practices very early on in our journey, and you were able to see like the growth of, of Clarksburg, um, that they, their case acceptance literally went from 22% to 55% case acceptance within about three months and so, um, you know, practice attending this event knows that you’ve kind of vetted those vendors and you know that they’ve, they’ve helped these practices, so they’re not, they can, they can learn from the companies, but also from your experience with the companies.

[00:12:40] Regan Robertson: I’m gonna put in a little ticker tape on this video. We have a phenomenal Everyday Practices Dental Podcast episode that features, uh, the doctors that you just mentioned. And, uh, and you can, you can get it in the show notes there and click on it and listen to it. It is a firsthand experience from a doctor that just, uh, achieved the growth that you were talking about. Uh, that is really, it’s, it’s fun to hear transformative stories, you know, and, and see up close what it is that they, the steps they took, uh, in order to, to be transforming. Do you find Marla, that, you know, it’s really, they that dentists get bogged down in the day to day, like, you know, uh, demands and then things like this get overlooked? How, I don’t know what research, I’m sure you’ve done lots of research on it, but how, what are you finding?

[00:13:20] Marla Merritt: We, we’ve encountered this and it was honestly a really tough thing for accept care when we first launched, is that many practices want to add a specialty or they’re, they’ve gone to classes to for growth and they’re ready to implement, but they. They haven’t put all the, the systems in place to make it happen. Um, and so we kind of found early on with accept care if there wasn’t a specific, like, we are going to do this every single time when x, you know, when we’re presenting this particular specialty or this particular, any dollar amount above, say $400, or, you know, there’s some, some very specific. If this, then we pull out accept care. And so, um, you know, we kind of hit that early on and so one thing that we have found with practices, especially if a practice is trying to grow ortho, the ortho specialty seems to be kind of a hot ticket item right now. You know these, there’s, um, great classes that you can take to learn how to do more Invisalign in your practice. Just, you know, for example, and so if you’ve got a use case like that and the, the practice is all, you know, the team’s on board, we’re going to do this. You know, having those steps outlined every time we present. Invisalign, we’re going to pull out accept care. We’re gonna hand the tablet to the patient.  We’re gonna let them accept. So kind of that adoption, um, really starting from even the fir the new patient phone call. When the, when a patient calls in, you’re going to say, and we have, “We offer Invisalign and we have flexible payment options. We’re gonna make it affordable for you.” So kind of, you know, taking it and really mapping out that patient journey and then where, what pieces do you need to change about what you’re doing today and let’s make sure that we, we’ve got those pieces in place and, and the whole team knows what they’re doing, you know?

[00:15:13] Regan Robertson: Oh, that naturally goes into the last question that I had, and I think you already answered it for me. I was going to ask you, Marla, if there’s one thing dentists can do today to set that new year up for success, what would it be?

[00:15:28] Marla Merritt: Yeah. Well, I love the salt, especially, you know, toward the end of the year, you’re thinking about next year. Mm-hmm. Let’s, let’s start by making a list of what are our pain points right now. Yeah. You know, number one, what, what are the things we think we need to correct? And then number two, what are our goals? If we, if the pain points didn’t exist or if we’re choosing to focus on growth instead of correcting the pain, what, what would we wanna accomplish? Yeah. So, you know, but then let’s narrow that list down and let’s make sure that we don’t [00:16:00] have a list of 30 things. Let’s pick two or three very actionable items and let’s tackle ’em. So if it’s. I want to double my align, clear aligner starts next year. Let’s make that the goal and let’s just have that one goal and let’s see what are all the pieces that need to be put in place and I think the PDA conference is so wonderful for this because I, there’s lots of the, the big picture ideas of these are things you could tackle, but then there’s also just the great, let’s, let’s dive in and let’s determine how you’re gonna make this work and it’s always from the, the point of view of the patient experience. You know, a lot of what PDA is is about, is making that patient experience. Wonderful, because we all know that’s really what it’s about at the end.

[00:16:48] Regan Robertson: Yeah.

[00:16:48] Marla Merritt: That’s how you get the case acceptance and that’s how we are doing what we all committed to do, which is to make sure that the patients have a healthy and beautiful smile.

[00:16:58] Regan Robertson: Marla, that is so beautiful. You know, I heard you say, take the time, clarify, focus and then you can take action. You, uh, I can already tell that is how you live your life. It is, it is so difficult to calm the chaos. And even during the holidays, you think you have time to reflect, but really, I mean, you’re making Turkey, you’re making prime rib, you’re getting holiday things going, presents wrapped, families interacting. It’s, it, it just becomes, um. A recipe for, for still living a hectic lifestyle. And I think you gave us some really great tips today. So Doctor, if you heard her, well get out the piece of paper. It’s worth your time. What do you wanna stop? What do you wanna start? What do you wanna continue? Uh, how do you, you know, how do you see your life going? And I love that too. How do you wanna make that patient feel? Do you wanna make it seamless and easy for them? Patient demands have changed. We know that and, uh, and so how do you wanna make their their lives easier? And in turn, that’s gonna make your life easier as well. Marla, thank you for being on our quick sneak peek interview. How can people get ahold of you, uh, before the conference?

[00:18:01] Marla Merritt: So me personally, marla.merit@orthofi.com. And then of course you can visit any of our brands’ websites. So AcceptCare.com or orthofi.com. We’d love to, if you’ll just, you know, click on the contact us. We’d love to tell you more about what we do and just talk to you about how we’re all gonna win next year.

[00:18:25] Regan Robertson: Let’s, yes, let’s win. I cannot wait to see you in Texas. And doctor, if you’re listening, I hope to see you too. We are excited to help you grow. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome. Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com, and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts. See you next week.