Financing Medical Equipment? Why You Should Be Pulling Credit Reports
Medical equipment is an integral part of a variety of medical and healthcare settings – from hospitals to outpatient clinics. But for many companies and organizations, the price of medical equipment can be prohibitively expensive.
Fortunately, medical device providers often provide financing opportunities to help healthcare professionals purchase the necessary equipment.
If you offer financing options for medical equipment, it is important to consider running credit checks on potential customers.
Soft pulls of potential customers’ credit reports can help you determine their financial health. This information can help you decide which products and payment plans may be appropriate for them. Plus, it can play a role in helping prevent the growing problem of unpaid bills and potential fraud – preventing loss of funds for you and your customers.
But pulling credit reports using a powerful data solution offers more than just a first line of defense against fraud and non-payment. Let's look at some of the risks you run by not running credit checks and how you can get started using credit reports to help protect your business.
The Power of Data: Protecting Your Investment
When you are selling or leasing medical equipment, data is your best friend. Credit reports are a treasure trove of information for companies such as yours, offering data-backed insights into your clients' financial habits and reliability. That's why adding a step for credit checks in your customer onboarding process is so important.
While onboarding new clients or determining continued financing suitability, credit reports play a key role by:
- Assessing the risk of late payments or defaults
- Evaluating the client's debt-to-income ratio
- Identifying any past financial or legal issues
- Estimating the likelihood of clients filing for bankruptcy
When you can protect your business from defaults, you create better and more secure relationships with your customers. Rather than operate purely on trust, credit checks provide the financial information that shows you have a reliable customer base.
Guarding Against Potential Fraud
When it comes to financing, businesses and organizations are a lot like individual consumers – they have the responsibility to ensure that their money is spent properly and that they can recoup what’s due to them. Credit checks provide a certain level of protection from fraudulent accounts or suspicious purchases that could lead to losses.
It's easy to think that medical facilities and clinics are exempt from this risk, but the reality is that fraud can occur anywhere, and often, it's not accounted for until it's too late. Rather than risk your assets, it's vital to utilize credit checks to ensure that you don't end up on the wrong side of a fraudulent transaction.
Having comprehensive financial records and checking prospective customers’ credit histories is an integral step in any business’s accounts receivable process.
Credit checks enable businesses to assess the risk associated with each customer and make informed decisions based on those results. This is especially important in the medical field, as a large portion of customers may be uninsured or unable to pay their full balance due.
Ensuring Positive Cash Flow and Sustainability
Even if fraud isn't an issue, offering financing to businesses or entities that can't stay on top of their financing payments could set your business back financially. A thorough and up-to-date credit check process can help to ensure that your company doesn't take on too much risk and that cash flow remains positive.
Clearly, financially responsible clients and consistent credit evaluations can lead to a healthier, more viable company in the long run. But more than just a financial safeguard, proper evaluation of customer credit can also help to foster relationships and set up customers for success.
Won't Credit Checks Slow Down The Process?
Some may argue that comprehensive credit checks can inhibit the speed and affordability of the financing process. However, technology has made gathering and processing credit data significantly easier.
Many cost-effective solutions are available to streamline credit evaluations and reduce their impact on the overall customer experience. Plus, top credit check solutions go far deeper than just evaluating payment history and can help you assess customer solvency and default risk.
When you are on the hunt for the right solution, consider online services that specialize in credit checks for small businesses and offer detailed reports on a customer’s creditworthiness. Look for features such as real-time credit scores, alerts, red flags, and data analysis tools that allow you to easily spot potential problems.
Most importantly, make sure you are compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This important law governs how businesses can collect and use consumer information, so it’s essential to understand and adhere to the requirements.
How Soft Pull Solutions Solves Business Credit Checks
At Soft Pull Solutions, we understand the importance of providing businesses with accurate and up-to-date information about their customers’ creditworthiness. That's why we've created the ultimate solution to make pulling credit reports easy and compliant.
Our platform provides robust features that make credit checks more efficient for businesses. We offer automated tools that streamline the process and offer all the details you need to make the right decisions on financing offers and credit lines. As a leader in soft pull credit reporting, we can help you ensure that your financing doesn't put you in a precarious financial situation.
See a holistic view of a company's past credit history and financial health with our reporting tool. You'll get detailed information on their payment histories, account balances, credit utilization data, and more—all in one place.
No matter your company's size, our tools can help you find the right credit and financing for your business. Our tools give you the information you need to make informed decisions and secure the best financing for your business.