Should You Put Dental Surgery on a Credit Card?
If you need dental surgery, you’ll have out of pocket expenses, even if you have a generous dental insurance plan. Before scheduling your dental surgery, explore your payment options so you can minimize the finance charges you’ll have to pay.
Some dental practices offer payment plans that don’t charge interest to patients who have good credit. If your dental surgeon offers this option, it may well be your best bet if you don’t have the cash on hand to cover out of pocket expenses.
Putting dental surgery expenses on credit cards can be a smart move too, under certain conditions. If you meet any of the three following conditions, then charging dental surgery to your credit card may be a good decision.
1. You have a credit card with a long 0% purchase period. Some cards are offering 0% spending terms that last well over a year. If you pay the charges off in time, you’re essentially giving yourself a loan at 0% interest.
2. Your credit card has a good reward or cash back program. Since dental surgery costs can be high, charging them is a good chance for you to accumulate lots of rewards points or cash back. If you can pay off your balance each month (or before any 0% purchase period ends), you can reap the rewards without offsetting them by having to pay interest.
3. You pay your card in full every month. If you only need 30 days to come up with the cash to pay your dental surgery expenses, then there’s not much reason not to charge it to your credit card. It’s basically a free 30-day loan, and if you get rewards points or cash back, so much the better.
Explore all your payment options before scheduling dental surgery, and you can ensure you don’t have to deal with financial pain on top of dental pain.