CreditCare Bill

With all the junk mail we get these days, it can be hard to spot a bona fide bill, especially from a company you don’t recognize. A Post Falls reader recently ran into this problem with CareCredit.

A few months back he had a tooth pulled at the dentist and hadn’t yet paid the bill. When he went into the dentist’s office to make a payment, he was told he didn’t owe anything. Turns out that was because he somehow signed up for CareCredit for the treatment.

CareCredit is a line of credit that one can sign up for to pay for out-of-pocket expenses not covered by medical insurance; it can be useful as a means of low to no interest financing if paid in full within the time offered through the medical provider.

Pay attention when you go to the dentist or doctor and are told about a program that you can use to pay out-of-pocket expenses. If you sign up for this service, the bill will be mailed from the credit provider and not your doctor’s office. The reader said the bill wasn’t clearly marked as services he received from his dentist and now he owes the initial bill, plus late fees and finance charges.

Bottom line: If you sign up for a service like this, don’t ignore the bill when it comes or you could find yourself repaying much more than the original amount.