SCDA Member Benefits August Egram
Difficulties With Patients Accepting Treatment in This Economy? 

As we all know, 2009 has not been a stellar year in regards to our country's economy.  Some states have experienced job losses in the double digits and the stock market is still very much on shaky ground.  We are hearing more often about patients delaying dental treatments due to the current economic climate that hovers over us all.  CareCredit has been hearing this as well and has developed a plan to assist patients with receiving the dental care they need.
 
CareCredit, the preferred provider of patient financing systems for the SCDA, is now offering a no interest payment plan of 24 months for treatment fees of $2,500 and above.  This will be an additional option you can offer along with their 3, 6, 12, and 18 month no interest plans currently in place.  Perhaps 2 years of no interest payments will ease your patients concerns about accepting the treatments they need now instead of further prolonging them.
 
If you practice presently works with CareCredit for patient financing, use terminal code 124 when processing transactions for the 24 month no interest payment plan.  If you currently do not offer CareCredit to your patients, but would like to learn more about what they can do to assist with you patents accepting treatments, click here 
BCBSSC Continuation Addendum

Every office covered under the medical plan must sign and return the BlueCross Continuation Addendum that was mailed out by BlueCross several weeks back.  You should have received a packet in the mail containing 10 - 11 pages discussing the continuation subsidy that was signed into law back in February.  This packet of information explains how to get your office ready for this new law.  If you did not receive this packet or have misplaced this information, click here to retrieve it from our website.
 
Please direct any and all questions pertaining to this mailing to either Joann Parrott at 1-888-745-3840 or Della Dawkins at 1-800-922-1185, ext 21978.
BCBSSC New Website
 
Take the time to visit the revamped BlueCross website today if you haven't already.  This is a great resource for members and their staffs to learn more about their medical insurance offered through the SCDA, i.e. network providers, drug designations, etc.  The website has a new look and feel to it, but most importantly it has become more user friendly.  Click here to visit the new site and follow the "Members" link.
Credit Card Processing - FYI

Effective back in April, MasterCard added the North American Branding Usage (NABU) Fee, which is an additional branding fee of $0.02 per transaction on all transactions.  Merchants started seeing this fee in May when they received their April statement.  Visa has now decided to add this fee to their cards effective in July.
 
This is a Visa/MasterCard mandated fee that all processors and merchants nationwide are being charged.  So far, Discover and American Express have not added any fees, I'll let you know if that changes!
August 10, 2009 
In This Issue
Difficulties With Patients Accepting Treatment in This Economy?
BCBSSC Continuation Addendum
BCBSSC New Website
Credit Card Processing - FYI
SCDA Blue Logo
 
As always, contact me at 1-800-327-2598, ext. 100 with any questions or visit us at www.scda.org

Sincerely,mark's sig
 
  






Mark K. Brown
SCDA Member Benefits Group Manager