The Troubling Rise of Medical Credit Cards

Many clinicians might not realize that medical credit cards (see Figure 1) are an option for patients to pay off health care bills, and their use appears to be growing. Recently, NEJM published a perspective in which the authors detail their concerns about these products and discuss how clinicians can guide patients.

Key Points

Widespread use and troubling features:

• 1 in 4 patients with overdue medical bills uses a medical credit card.

• Most signups (65%) for these credit cards occur at medical offices.

• The initial terms can be appealing (e.g., zero-interest); however, missed payments can trigger extremely high interest rates.

• Patients might mistake these products for payment plans with the clinical institution — not new lines of credit — a…