7 minute read
COVER STORY: TOTAL LIFESTYLE CREDIT
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, 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; we recommend a service because it’s the right one for them and they get the best out of that opportunity. We’ve got brilliant physical account managers here who look after the patient from start to finish, which creates a non-robotic symphony in the seemingly static, boring world of finance.
How TLC can grow your business
What differentiates TLC from everyone else is, if you walk into a bank, you can only get one product, whereas we are backed by nine funding lines, which allows us to marry up clients with a payment solution that suits them. And we can help all forms of employment, including casual from four months, people can work full/part-time if they’ve got a six-months working history, and we help disability, carer and single-parent incomes as well, so there’s a much broader demographic that’s available to clinics and practitioners. So that’s what TLC does for clinics, we offer a 10-30 per cent extra growth opportunity for your business because we can broaden the demographics of potential patients.
And when price point comes up in your consultations, it gives a practitioner’s team the opportunity to create a dialogue with the patient to go “yep, I know it’s 20k for the treatment, but it’s only $100 a week for you with TLC, does that fit your budget?”
People can actually talk to us before they even book in for a consult to see if the treatment they want is an option for them financially. When clients walk through your door they’ve already made up their mind about what they want, the only thing holding them back is price point, so if you can eliminate that conversation about price point by giving them variables, you’re much more likely to keep that patient. With some of our fintech, we can get you approval within an hour, which opens up the opportunity to do cancellation bookings to fill any gaps you might have in your appointment books.
Clinics can work with us, no strings attached
If clinics want to work with us, they have to add their clinic’s information onto our website, it’s completely free of charge, no holdback fee or service cost, no liability on the clinic. We also follow AHPRA guidelines really closely; we fund directly to the patient, so they’re the ones that choose who they go to rather than other companies that pay directly to businesses.
March 2022 has been our biggest month ever with over 2,100 patients applying with us, which is a testament to the team to be able to achieve that, and a large amount of that went to the medical aesthetics space. In the last 17 years, I’ve been able to generate in excess of $2 billion in applications for the medical and aesthetics space, which doesn’t just go to the clinic, but it covers nurses, receptionists, device costs, hospital staff etc, and that’s something I’m really proud of. We’ve surpassed $900 million applications since 2019.
We also provide a commercial arm, looking after BTL Aesthetics exclusively; we’re passionate about assisting businesses in getting the right medical device and offering the right solutions to the clients. There have been a lot of copycat products out there in the last 20 years, and not all provide great results so it’s important that businesses get involved with device companies that can be trusted.
Aesthetic trends we’re seeing this year
At the moment, demand for facial rejuvenation is by far the highest; rhinoplasties, facial surgery, and breast augmentation is what we see. People have been locked inside for so long recently, they want to go out and look good. Liposuction has increased dramatically as well, and we do a huge amount of corrective eye surgery. But we also offer really simple small loans for something like injectables or body sculpting. And for the clinics it’s better because rather than getting incremental payments from the patient for the next few months, we can fund everything upfront for the client.
TLC is an extension of a clinics’ business model, an opportunity to upsell a client, and we’re excited to see the growth of the aesthetic world as we see great potential. Already in the past years TLC has been operating, we have seen a reduction of BBL procedures coming through and an influx of breast augmentation. This shows us that as times change and evolve, there is more potential for the cosmetic industry to grow and progress as the world does. Cosmetic procedures are evidently becoming more popular and desirable to individuals, with an array of talented surgeons coming on board. This ensures us to believe that the cosmetic industry only has one way to go and that’s up! For more information, visit tlc.com.au
