The front desk hands you a tablet and says the financing is interest free. Very often it is not. Most of what gets offered at a dental, veterinary, cosmetic, vision or hearing practice is a deferred interest promotion, which means interest is quietly accruing on your balance the entire time and gets billed retroactively if you miss the payoff deadline by even a dollar.
That single distinction is the whole game. Between 2018 and 2020, patients charged nearly $23 billion of healthcare costs to medical credit cards and loans with deferred interest periods across more than 17 million purchases, and paid about $1 billion in deferred interest, according to the CFPB’s May 2023 report on medical payment products. Individual purchases ranged from $35 to $40,000. This guide compares the products you will actually be handed, what each one charges as of September 2026, and how to tell a real 0% offer from a deferred interest one before you sign.
What Is a Medical Credit Card
A medical credit card is a revolving credit card that only works inside a network of health and wellness providers. CareCredit, the largest, is issued by Synchrony Bank. Alphaeon Credit is issued by Comenity Capital Bank, part of Bread Financial. You apply at the counter, get a credit line, and the practice is paid up front while you owe the bank.
Sitting next to those on the same tablet are patient installment lenders: Cherry, Sunbit, Proceed Finance and Scratchpay. Those are closed-end loans, not cards. You borrow a fixed amount for a fixed term at a fixed rate, and when it is paid off the account closes. Both categories get called “patient financing” at the front desk, and the staff member offering it is usually not trained to explain the difference.
The practice is not neutral here. It pays a merchant fee and in exchange gets paid immediately rather than chasing you for a year. That is a legitimate arrangement, but it means the product pushed hardest is not necessarily the cheapest one for you.
How It Works
Deferred interest, the default at most practices
The offer reads “No interest if paid in full within 12 months.” The CareCredit cardholder agreement (Synchrony Bank, revised March 2026) spells out what that actually means: “We always charge interest on promotional purchases and their related fees from the date you make the purchase.” Interest is running from day one at 32.99%. It is only waived if you clear the whole promotional balance inside the window.
The trap is that the required minimum payment is not sized to get you there. The same agreement states plainly that “the required minimum monthly payments may or may not pay off the promo purchase before the end of the promo period.” CareCredit’s minimum payment is the greater of $30, 3.25% of the balance, or 1% of the balance plus interest and fees. On a 24 month promotion, 3.25% a month does not retire the balance in 24 months.
True 0% APR
A true 0% plan means the interest rate is genuinely zero. If you still owe money when the promotional term ends, you owe the remaining principal and nothing more. Cherry advertises “qualifying 0% APR options” with no deferred interest, and Sunbit’s rates and terms page distinguishes a true 0% APR plan from a separate “avoid paying interest” plan where interest is waived only if you pay in full before the promo ends. That second structure behaves like deferred interest, so ask which one you are being given and get it in writing.
Fixed-rate installment loans
Proceed Finance, Scratchpay and Cherry’s longer terms are simple-interest amortizing loans. Every payment is the same, part principal and part interest, and there is no cliff at the end. You pay more total interest than on a promotion you successfully clear, and far less than on a promotion you blow.
Reduced-APR equal payment plans
CareCredit’s 24, 36, 48 and 60 month plans are a hybrid: a card account with a fixed monthly payment and a real, disclosed interest rate instead of a deferred one. CareCredit publishes the monthly payment factors rather than the APR (4.9876% of the purchase for 24 months, 3.6605% for 36, 3.0377% for 48, 2.6997% for 60). Run those factors through a standard amortization and they imply roughly 17.9%, 18.9%, 19.9% and 20.9% APR respectively. That is expensive, but it is honest pricing with no retroactive surprise.
What It Costs
Figures below were read from each company’s own rate and terms pages in September 2026. APRs on revolving cards move with the prime rate, so re-check before you sign.
| Product | Promo structure | Standard APR | Typical terms | Deferred interest? | Where it is accepted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CareCredit (Synchrony) | No interest if paid in full in 6/12/18/24 months on $200+; reduced-APR equal payment on $1,000+ | 32.99% purchase, 39.99% penalty | 6 to 60 months | Yes, on the short promos | The widest network here: dental, vision, vet, cosmetic and hearing |
| Cherry | True 0% APR on qualifying plans | 0% to 35.99% | 1 to 60 months | No | Elective and aesthetic practices |
| Sunbit | True 0% APR plans, plus a separate waived-interest plan | 0% to 35.99% (0% to 20.99% in Iowa, 0% to 17.99% in West Virginia) | 3 to 72 months | Only on the waived-interest plan | Point-of-sale merchants including dental, optical and vet |
| Alphaeon Credit (Comenity Capital Bank) | Special financing on qualifying purchases of $250 or more | 32.99% purchase, variable penalty APR up to 39.99%, as of 07/2026 | Set by the practice | Yes | Aesthetic and elective specialties such as dermatology and ophthalmology |
| Proceed Finance | None, a plain amortizing loan | 6.99% (36 mo) to 10.99% (144 mo) in published examples, as of 02/2026 | 24 to 144 months | No | Large dental and medical cases |
Amount ranges differ just as much. Cherry funds $35 to $65,000, Sunbit $50 to $20,000, and Proceed Finance $1,500 to $75,000 with a $50 minimum monthly payment. Alphaeon and CareCredit issue revolving credit lines instead, and Alphaeon is structurally the closest thing to CareCredit here: a Comenity-issued card whose promotional plans are built the same way, covered in our page on Alphaeon Credit.
What deferred interest actually costs, in dollars
Say you charge a $2,000 crown to a CareCredit 12-month promotion. Clearing it on time takes $166.67 a month. You pay $150 a month instead, which feels responsible. After 12 payments you have paid $1,800 and you are $200 short.
At that moment the accrued interest is added. Interest ran at 32.99% on the declining balance for the whole year, which works out to roughly $390. Your $200 shortfall just cost you about $390, and the combined $590 now carries the standard 32.99% APR going forward. If you were also late at any point, Synchrony can apply the 39.99% penalty APR, and per the agreement that penalty rate “may remain in effect indefinitely.”
That is the structural problem in one line: the minimum payment is not designed to save you, and the penalty for coming up short is not proportional to how short you came.
What the fees add
Beyond interest, the CareCredit agreement lists a late payment fee of $30, rising to $41 if you were late in any of the prior six billing cycles, an identical $30 or $41 returned payment fee, a $2 minimum interest charge, and a $1.99 monthly paper statement fee if you do not go paperless. Sunbit advertises no late fees, no origination fees and no penalty APR. Cherry charges a late fee if payment is not received within 15 days of the due date, plus a 2.99% processing fee if you pay by credit card. Proceed Finance charges no down payment and no prepayment penalty.
Who It’s Good For and Who Should Skip It
It can work if you have the cash flow to clear a deferred interest promotion comfortably and with margin, you are financing genuinely elective care (cosmetic, orthodontic, LASIK, veterinary) that no charity program covers, and you set up an autopay for the payoff amount rather than the minimum. A 6-month promo cleared on schedule genuinely costs zero.
It can also work when the alternative is worse. A Proceed Finance loan at 6.99% to 10.99% is cheaper than the 21.00% average credit card rate the Federal Reserve reported for June 2026.
Skip it if the bill came from a nonprofit hospital. The CFPB warns that moving a hospital bill onto a financing product can disqualify you from that hospital’s charity care program, because the debt is no longer owed to the hospital. Check that first, always.
Skip it if you are financing to the limit of what you can afford, because deferred interest punishes exactly the borrower who is close to the line. And skip it if you have not yet asked the practice for a cash discount, since many will quietly take something off to avoid the financing company’s merchant fee. Our negotiation script covers how to ask.
Medical Credit Cards vs. the Alternatives
| Option | Typical cost | Retroactive interest risk | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medical credit card promo (CareCredit, Alphaeon) | 0% if cleared on time, else 32.99% back to day one | High | Small elective purchases you can definitely clear |
| Patient installment loan (Cherry, Sunbit, Proceed) | 0% to 35.99%, or 6.99% to 10.99% at Proceed | None on true 0% or fixed-rate plans | Larger cases and anyone unsure of payoff timing |
| Provider’s own payment plan | Often 0% and no credit check | None | Hospital and clinic balances |
| Hospital charity care | Free or steeply discounted | None | Nonprofit hospital bills, if you qualify on income |
| Bank or credit union personal loan | 11.86% average for 24 months (Fed, June 2026) | None | Good credit, larger balances |
| General purpose credit card | 21.00% average, all accounts (Fed, June 2026) | None | Small balances you will revolve anyway |
The Federal Reserve’s G.19 release for June 2026, published August 7, 2026, put the average rate on all credit card accounts at 21.00% and on accounts assessed interest at 22.15%. A 32.99% medical card is meaningfully more expensive than the ordinary card in your wallet, which is the opposite of how it is presented at the counter.
A few other names you will run into: Scratchpay and Denefits appear mostly in veterinary and dental offices, and United Credit (formerly United Medical Credit) and Prosper Healthcare Lending are marketplaces that shop your application to third-party personal lenders rather than lending themselves. With a marketplace, read the offer that comes back, not the marketing on the referring site.
The Bottom Line
Before you accept any of it, price the care itself with our fair price checker and read up on negotiating the bill. Financing a padded price at 32.99% is the worst of both worlds. If a bill is already outstanding, an in-house payment plan at zero interest beats every product on this page, and if it has already gone to a collector, start with medical bills in collections instead.
If you do finance, ask one question at the counter: “Is this deferred interest or a true zero percent rate?” Anything other than a clear, confident “true zero” means interest is accruing right now. Then divide the total by the number of promo months, set that as your autopay, and do not touch the minimum. For the product-by-product detail, see our deep pages on CareCredit, Cherry, Sunbit and Proceed Finance, and the cost guides for the procedures people finance most: dental implants, root canals, hearing aids and LASIK.