Credit Cards Help to Dull Pain of Doctor Bills : Debt: Spurred by rising costs, patients tell doctors to ‘charge it.’ Besides the major credit cards, they now can pay with special medical and dental cards.

For years, Jennifer Leigh hated the dark stains on her teeth, caused by antibiotics she took as a child. But until recently, she couldn’t afford to do anything about them.

Leigh, an Elmhurst, N.Y., resident who is starting modeling school this month and works as a bartender, responded to a TV commercial for low-cost cosmetic dentistry that promised help with financing.

Now she is having her teeth laminated with porcelain at Complete Cosmetic Dental Care, a large Manhattan practice, and charging it on a special dental credit card called Dent-A-Med. She’s not concerned about the 19.5% charge; what matters is that she can afford the monthly payments.

“Who’s going to dish out $5,000?” said Leigh, who is paying $140 a month, over two years, for the work done so far.

American consumers are consummate credit card users, charging purchases as various as hamburgers, airline tickets and new wardrobes. Now, with medical bills eating away $160 billion a year from our collective pocketbooks--the amount not paid by private or government insurers--credit card companies are eyeing the doctor’s office and other health care providers as the next great charge card frontier.

Patients such as Leigh are whipping out credit cards in small, but growing, numbers, from the major credit cards to specialized medical and dental cards, for the privilege to pay over time. In some cases, they are accepting annual rates as high as 21% for access to credit that might otherwise be denied them and the opportunity to pay in small chunks.

Experts cite several favorable trends for the business.

Health care costs are continuing to rise at double-digit rates. Patients are picking up more of the costs themselves, as employers increase co-payments and deductibles and insurers restrict, and sometimes reject, reimbursement. More doctors, tired of being in the collection business, are demanding up-front payments from patients. With the costs of running a practice on the rise, many doctors are happy to take credit cards, knowing they won’t have to deal with bounced checks or carry receivables on their books for months on end.

And in dentistry, particularly, where many procedures are elective and insurance coverage is often non-existent, doctors find that many patients never return to have recommended work done.

“Except for fear, finances are always the reason,” said Dr. Leonard Goldstein, a New York dentist who accepts the three major credit cards, as well as two specialty cards--Dencharge and Opt4, a new card made available in just New York. He’s willing to pay membership fees and service charges, which average around 5%, because it saves his office postage, billing and collection costs.

There still is plenty of room to grow in this market: About 3% of consumers’ health care bills are being paid on credit cards, according to industry estimates.

“The potential is astronomical,” said Bill Seelie, director of health care marketing at American Express, whose card is accepted by about 60,000 doctors nationwide. The dollar volume of medical charges at American Express has been growing 50% a year.

In 1990, Visa is targeting the health-care market, as well as five other industries--including travel and supermarkets--to devise ways to expand its business.

“Our research indicates that doctors would like to be rescued from the ‘administrivia’ of running a practice if someone else is willing to carry their receivables,” said Dan Brigham, a Visa spokesman.

While American Express, Visa and Mastercard hone their marketing strategies to reach health care providers and their patients, a number of entrepreneurial companies around the country are offering cards to be used for medical bills only. They believe that many people would rather leave open their conventional credit lines for other purchases or might need far more financing than their conventional cards allow. These companies are signing up new practices for their cards at medical meetings and through direct mail.

“This is what many people see as an untapped niche in the financing industry,” said Carol Joyner, director of customer services at Dent-A-Med, a Fayetteville, Ark.-based company that was started by a group of dentists. It now serves 2,000 practices and about 90,000 cardholders in 37 states.

At least one major bank, Maryland Bank America, thinks the market has possibilities: Last June, it purchased Health Care Assistance Corp. of Tampa, Fla., and plans to invest up to $5 million to market the Health Cap charge card, industry reports say.

Industry experts concede there are problems to overcome. Some doctors are embarrassed to push credit cards in their practices, and many patients don’t think of asking about credit.

“People are so used to using their credit cards in retail or in restaurants or in lodging, but when they walk into a health care provider, be it your doctor or dentist, there’s a behavior that’s been established, which is to pay for your medical expenses with a check,” said American Express’ Seelie.

Trying to change those patterns, American Express has experimented with different marketing techniques, also designed to help build business for health care providers. In one successful marketing campaign, American Express sent mailers to their charge clients in Cleveland to interest them in taking seminars at the Cleveland Clinic, which wanted to increase its local clientele.

Visa is accepted by about 50% of all doctors and an even higher percentage of dentists. But Visa estimates it is capturing only about 1% of out-of-pocket medical payments.