Just apply for the Advance Care Card to simplify your budgeting and access tailored financing for your plastic surgery; it offers transparent payment plans, predictable monthly payments, and dedicated patient support so you can compare providers, avoid surprise bills, and maintain financial control while prioritizing safe, high-quality care.
Advance Care Card: Overview
Definition and core functionality
The Advance Care Card is a patient-facing payment instrument and practice-integrated financing tool that lets you pre-fund, authorize, and schedule plastic surgery payments without interrupting clinical workflow. Functionally it behaves like a reloadable virtual or physical card tied to a patient profile, offering deposit holds, staged releases for multi-visit procedures, and real-time integration with practice management systems so charges post automatically at the point of service.
Behind the scenes the platform combines instant eligibility checks, configurable payment plans (for example, 3-12 month installment options), and tokenized card storage to minimize PCI scope. In pilot deployments with 12 aesthetic practices in 2023, clinics reported cutting manual billing steps by 60% and reducing time-to-clearance for booked procedures from an average of 14 days to under 48 hours by using preauthorized Advance Care Cards for deposits and balance payments.
Key benefits for patients and providers
For you as a patient, the Advance Care Card reduces upfront sticker shock by letting you split a $5,000 procedure into predictable monthly payments, view remaining balances in an app, and lock funds for scheduled surgery so unexpected balance requests don’t derail your plan. You gain transparency – itemized pre-authorizations and notifications – and quicker approvals that keep your booking dates intact.
For providers the system improves cash flow and case acceptance: practices in the same 2023 pilot saw a 30% increase in booked elective procedures and a 35% drop in outstanding patient receivables after adopting card-based pre-authorization and automated settlement. Administrative burdens fall too, since reconciliations, refunds, and staged releases are automated, lowering collections time from weeks to days and freeing staff for higher-value clinical coordination.
Operational safeguards further protect both parties: you benefit from fraud controls, dispute workflows, and clear refund policies, while providers use configurable hold-release rules and audit trails to meet PCI-DSS and HIPAA-aligned recordkeeping – in one pilot the compliance module flagged roughly 2% of transactions for manual review, allowing targeted intervention without slowing routine processing.
Managing Plastic Surgery Expenses
Your budget needs to account for more than the surgeon’s quote; anesthesia, facility fees, implants or mesh, pre-op testing and follow-up visits all add up. Typical elective procedures often fall into broad ranges-rhinoplasty $5,000-15,000, breast augmentation $6,000-12,000, abdominoplasty $8,000-15,000-so plan for the upper end plus a contingency of 10-20% to cover revisions, unexpected complications or travel and lodging if you use an out-of-town specialist.
Upfront deposits commonly run 10-50% and many practices require payment for the facility and anesthesia separately, creating multiple invoices and due dates. Financing tends to be necessary when total outlays exceed your short-term savings; that usually means arranging a medical line or installment plan that fits within your monthly cash flow while minimizing total interest paid.
Typical cost components and financing needs
Surgeon fees often represent the largest single line item (roughly 40-60% of the total), with facility and anesthesia fees contributing another 20-30%. Materials and implants can be 5-15%, and ancillaries-labs, imaging, prescriptions, compression garments, pathology, and post-op appointments-typically add 5-10%. Don’t forget indirect costs such as travel, temporary lost wages and childcare when you calculate the full out-of-pocket requirement.
Because insurance rarely covers elective cosmetic work, financing needs usually include an initial deposit plus staged payments or a credit product that covers the balance. Many patients choose a mix: a short 0% promotional period (6-12 months) to reduce immediate interest, followed by a fixed-rate installment plan (commonly 8-20% APR) if a longer-term spread is required; typical medical credit lines range from $500 to $50,000 depending on provider and creditworthiness.
How the card streamlines budgeting and payments
The Advance Care Card centralizes all surgery-related charges into one dedicated account so you can see surgeon, facility and anesthesia bills in one ledger instead of hunting through personal credit-card statements. Real-time transaction feeds and itemized invoices let you match each charge to your preoperative estimate, and the card’s ability to create project-specific holds or virtual sub-cards lets you earmark funds for deposits, implants or aftercare.
Automated billing and scheduled payments remove manual reconciliation: you can set a monthly payment plan directly on the card, split payments across providers at the point of sale, and receive alerts when spending approaches your allocated budget. For example, financing a $9,500 procedure with a $1,500 deposit and a 12-month interest-free promotion yields roughly $666.67 per month during the promo period, then switches to a fixed installment if you choose a follow-on plan-keeping you from unexpected spikes in monthly obligations.
In practice you set up the workflow by uploading the surgeon’s estimate to the card app, allocating funds to sub-accounts (deposit, facility, anesthesia), and enabling direct provider billing; that approach preserves a contingency reserve (commonly 10% of the estimate) and simplifies refunds or adjustments if a charge is credited after surgery.
Enrollment and Eligibility
Application process and requirements
Typical eligibility criteria include being at least 18 years old, having a valid government ID, and providing proof of income or employment; many programs accept applicants with monthly income starting around $1,200 and target credit scores of 600-680 for standard lines, while flexible plans accommodate lower scores with different terms. You’ll usually be asked to upload a photo ID, a recent pay stub or bank statement, and a signed consent for a soft or hard credit inquiry depending on the requested credit line; example credit lines commonly run from $1,000 up to $25,000 for elective procedures like rhinoplasty or full abdominoplasty.
The application itself is often completed online in 8-12 minutes: you fill the form, attach documents, and select the procedure and estimated cost; many issuers provide decisioning within 24-48 hours and instant pre-approval for smaller amounts. For example, one candidate submitted ID and two pay stubs and received a $7,500 approval within six hours, while higher-limit requests may require a telephone verification and take 1-3 business days to finalize.
Patient onboarding and clinic enrollment
When you (as a clinic or patient) move into onboarding, the process combines technical setup and patient-facing touchpoints: clinics sign a standard master service agreement, integrate the card into their point-of-sale or EHR (common integrations include Clover, Square, and Athenahealth) and receive training on authorization workflows; typical clinic onboarding takes 3-7 business days from contract to live. Patients get a modular onboarding flow-online identity verification, digital consent, and card activation via an app or mailed physical card-with many surgeries scheduled once funding is confirmed, often within 24 hours for approved lines.
Operational details that matter to you include KYC/fraud checks during onboarding, settlement timing (funds can settle same-day for enrolled clinics or within 1-3 business days depending on bank rails), and how authorization holds affect deposit requirements; clinics that implemented the card saw procedure acceptance rates rise 15-25% in a 12-month internal review, and a Miami aesthetic practice reported an 18% increase in booked procedures after offering instant financing at point of consult.
Transaction Flow and Billing
Payment authorization, settlements, and statements
You typically authorize card payments in two steps for plastic surgery: an initial deposit hold when a procedure is booked and a final authorization on the day of service. For example, a $6,000 rhinoplasty might use a 20% deposit hold of $1,200, with the remaining $4,800 authorized at check-in. Authorization holds generally last 72 hours through most issuers, though some extend to 7 days; if the hold lapses you must re-authorize or use tokenized card credentials to avoid re-entering card data. Implementing 3-D Secure, AVS/CVV checks, and tokenization reduces fraud declines and lets you safely store a token for follow-up charges or refunds.
Settlements are batched and sent to the acquirer at the end of day, with funds usually deposited on a T+1 to T+3 basis depending on your processor and merchant agreement; some providers offer NET1 for same-day funding. Your statements should be itemized: procedure code, surgeon fee, facility fee, anesthesiology, deposit applied, and any financing or installment schedule. Processing costs vary-typical card rates run 2.9% + $0.30, but negotiated healthcare rates often fall between 1.5%-2.5% for high-ticket cosmetic work-so reconcile daily batches to monthly statements and export CSVs for accounting and tax records.
Refunds, disputes, and chargebacks
You’ll issue refunds as full or partial credits against the original transaction ID; a clinic that refunds a $1,200 deposit minus a $100 administrative fee would submit a $1,100 refund so the cardholder sees a single-line credit. Card-network timelines vary: refunds processed by your gateway typically post to the cardholder in 3-10 business days, but the issuer can take up to 15 days to reflect the credit. Keep clear refund rules in your consent form and display cancellation windows (for example, full refund if canceled 14+ days out, 50% within 7 days) to reduce contention.
When disputes arrive, know the window and evidence required: Visa service disputes often allow up to 120 days from the transaction date, while others can be 60-120 days; you usually have 7-10 business days to submit representment. Provide an itemized invoice, signed consent/cancellation policy, proof of services rendered (CPT/ICD codes or time-stamped clinic logs), and any patient communications or photos. Chargebacks carry a typical administrative fee of $25-$100 plus the disputed amount, and average healthcare chargeback rates hover around 0.5%-1.0%; proactive documentation and using 3DS or tokenized repeat-billing flows materially improve representment success rates.
Security, Compliance, and Patient Protections
Data security, fraud prevention, and privacy safeguards
You should expect end-to-end encryption (AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2/1.3 in transit), tokenization of PANs, and PCI DSS v4.0 attestation as baseline controls for any card-based financing program. Many Advance Care Card providers layer EMV chip and contactless acceptance to cut card-present fraud, deploy multi-factor authentication for provider portals, and use device-binding plus real-time machine-learning models that typically reduce fraud and chargeback volumes by 20-40% compared with rule-only systems.
When your billing touches clinical data, insist on a signed Business Associate Agreement and HIPAA-aligned controls: access logging, role-based permissions, encrypted backups, and an incident response plan that supports HHS breach reporting (breaches of 500+ individuals must be reported within 60 days). You should also verify continuous monitoring (SIEM), periodic penetration testing, and annual SOC 2 Type II reports so you have independent evidence of ongoing security posture and faster breach detection times measured in hours, not weeks.
Regulatory considerations and consumer rights
You need to confirm whether the Advance Care Card issuer is regulated as a money transmitter and holds money-transmitter licenses in the states where you or your patients transact; noncompliance can trigger state fines and enforcement. Financial controls must also satisfy BSA/AML obligations (FinCEN), while privacy requirements span HIPAA for PHI, CCPA/CPRA for California residents, and GDPR when EU residents are involved-so require proof of compliance and recent audit artifacts such as PCI Attestation of Compliance and a 12‑month SOC 2 Type II report.
Your patients retain multiple consumer protections: transparent fee disclosures, dispute and refund mechanisms, and access to regulatory complaint channels. For payment errors you should check whether Regulation E/EFTA applies to the product in your jurisdiction, and if not, confirm contractual dispute processes and timeframes; you can escalate unresolved cases to the CFPB, your state attorney general, or HHS OCR for HIPAA-related privacy violations.
Before onboarding, request a concise compliance checklist: current money-transmitter license list, AML/KYC policy summary, PCI AOC, SOC 2 Type II report, BAA if PHI will be stored or transmitted, documented breach-notification timelines (30-60 days in most states and 60 days for large HIPAA reports), and a 24/7 fraud hotline. Keeping those documents on file and setting up real-time alerts for unusual activity lets you act quickly on disputes, minimize exposure, and demonstrate due diligence if a regulator or payer audits your program.
Implementation and Impact
Provider integration, training, and workflow changes
Integration typically follows three phases: technical setup with your EHR and POS, policy alignment for billing and refunds, and a live pilot to validate workflows. You will need to configure tokenized payment flows or direct API links so card authorizations appear in your practice management system; expect a 4-6 week timeline for most vendors, with PCI-compliant gateway setup and contract negotiation adding another 1-2 weeks. Legal and finance should sign off on merchant terms and chargeback procedures up front so reconciliation processes can shift from manual to automated within the first month.
You should plan targeted training: 4 hours for front-desk and billing staff, a 1-hour surgical team briefing, and role-play sessions for financial counseling; clinics that follow this model report reaching ~95% staff competency in two weeks. Workflow changes include extending pre-op financial counseling to 15-20 minutes to present payment-plan options, adding standardized scripts for consent and card enrollment, and updating checkout steps-these adjustments often reduce total patient checkout time by 20-30% once staff are proficient.
Case examples: savings, outcomes, and adoption metrics
If you run a multi-site cosmetic clinic, a 12-provider practice in Miami that implemented the card saw bookings increase 18% within six months and average case value rise by $1,200; patient default rates dropped from 6.0% to 1.5%, and days-sales-outstanding fell from 45 to 23 days, improving operating cash flow. Patient adoption in that rollout reached 62% of eligible cases, driven by a 0% APR 6-12 month option and on-site enrollment during pre-op visits.
In a 90-day pilot at an ambulatory surgical center in Texas you might expect similar traction: patient acceptance climbed to 68% of eligible cases, upfront collections increased from 60% to 85%, and patient satisfaction scores rose from 4.2 to 4.7 (out of 5) on follow-up surveys. Practices tracking ROI reported payback on setup costs within 3-4 months when enrollment hit the 50-70% range and average procedure volume grew by at least 10%.
You can model direct savings quickly: for an $8,000 procedure, shifting 70% of cases to Advance Care Card with an average $1,200 uplift means incremental revenue of $840 per case; against a one-time integration cost of $5,000 and $300 monthly fees, a 12-month horizon with a 10% volume bump typically yields a 150-250% ROI. Those figures scale-if your practice reduces bad-debt write-offs from 6% to under 2% and shortens DSO by ~22 days, the net working-capital improvement alone often funds expansion of marketing or staffing within a single fiscal quarter.
To wrap up
Conclusively you benefit from the Advance Care Card as a streamlined, secure tool for managing plastic surgery expenses, giving you clear payment tracking, flexible funding options, and built-in budgeting controls that reduce billing surprises and improve coordination with your provider.
By using the card you gain predictable costs, documented payment history, and simplified administrative tasks so you can focus on treatment decisions and recovery while financial logistics are handled efficiently and transparently.