MAKING Treatments ACCESSIBLE FOR EVERYONE Total Lifestyle Credit is helping thousands of people undergo the medical and aesthetic treatments they desire. Founder Tim Boon explains why his service is an extension of your clinic’s business model, and how easy it is for practitioners to get involved.
I
started MacCredit back in 2004 as I saw that there was no one openly offering payment plans in the medical space. We were involved with about 2,500 businesses nationally, and it was one of the most gratifying things I ever did because it got me introduced to so many different verticals in the medical space, like IVF, bariatrics and orthopaedics, and I worked with many medical device companies, increasing the opportunity for patients to move forward with treatments. I was lucky to sell that company in 2016 and retired for three years. Whilst I enjoyed my early retirement, it was really daunting, because my identity had kind of changed. Suddenly I was a dad, and I asked myself ‘Do I want to go back to work, what do I want to achieve?’ and I felt there was something inside me that I was really passionate about, from the patient’s perspective. Patients are the ones that fuel this industry, and as such, I wanted to make sure that I could come up with a second business model that was completely patient centric. I had to create a better service that fit today’s patient, but also provided everything that they require. It was a really big learning curve for me, getting a credit license, and starting another business, but now we currently look after over 1,900 businesses on board nationally and we’re the biggest patient funding facility in the country at the moment. Moreover, we’re working with some major divisions, 58 | SPA+CLINIC
such as the St John of God Hospital nationally, which is something I’m really passionate about.
Why people aren’t getting private health insurance anymore Because of the pandemic and what’s happened in the past two years many people have disassociated themselves with private health insurance, so now, 55 per cent of the population don’t hold private health insurance compared to around 30 per cent pre-pandemic. So if you’re interested in an aesthetic procedure or a medical procedure, you’ve got a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. And even though there are certain Medicare rebates, you have to pay for everything up front. I wanted to create a funding product so that the patient had complete control over what they were doing. If people get any rebates, they can put it straight back on to the payment plan with us, which gives them flexibility. For me, actually, it’s all about the service you provide, and we’ve got a great team who are very passionate about providing that service. A lot of our clients are on a very emotional journey and they sometimes want to know from us, as we have been in this industry for 17 years, if they’re going to the right place to have their procedure done. We would never recommend a service because of price point;
