Alchemy launches automated medical financing SaaS platform

Alchemy enhances its existing medical financing platform and launched a new and improved high performance platform that enables banks and financial services to reach millions of consumers seeking cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries.

Cosmetic surgery landscape

According American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2020 there were 2.3 million cosmetic surgical procedures performed in the U.S. and over 13.2 million cosmetic minimally invasive procedures performed during the same time period. Together, there were 15.6 million cosmetic procedures performed in 2020.

There were also close to 7 million reconstructive procedures performed during 2020, a 3% increase from 2019.

The most popular cosmetic surgical procedures in 2020 were Nose Reshaping, Eyelid Surgery, Facelift, Liposuction and Breast Augmentation representing half of of the 2.3 million cosmetic surgical procedures performed.

Out of the 13.2 million cosmetic minimally invasive procedures performed, the top 5 most comment procedures were Botulinum Toxin Type A, Soft Tissue Filler, Chemical Peel, Laser Skin Resurfacing as well as Intense Pulse Light Treatment. These top five produces represents 80% of all minimally invasive procedures performed in 2020.

Cosmetic spending trend

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global cosmetic surgery market size was valued at $51 billion in 2018 and expected to grow to $67 billion by 2026. 

One of the biggest drivers is due to the number of FDA approved and licensed medical spas. In the U.S. the number of medial spas according to Med Spa Association has grown by 50% during 2016 to 2018. US is estimated to have over 4,200 operating licensed medical spas.

According to The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, females accounted for more than 85% of the surgical and non-surgical procedures performed globally in 2018. The male segment also experienced growth due to urbanization and the reduction of social stigma associated with males undergoing cosmetic surgical procedures.

COVID-19 impact

In an article published by American Society of Plastic Surgeons, board-certified plastic surgeons reported a lost of 8.1 weeks of surgical time due to COVID-19 or about 15% decrease compared to the amount of procedures performed prior to COVID-19.

However, the interests of receiving cosmetic surgery amongst 1,000 women surveyed grown during the pandemic. 11% of the women surveyed has an increase interest in cosmetic surgery in 2021 than they were in 2020.

The interesting findings found by American Society of Plastic Surgeons was that during COVID-19, most people are confined in their home. Working from home produced a significant surge in conference calls where people don’t have to appear on screen as well as discreetly recover at home because they are already working from home.

Because people are staying at home, tummy tucks and liposuction are amongst the top procedures that women seek to consider. This is attributed to weight fluctuation during quarantine.

Cost and financing of cosmetic procedures and elective surgeries

The cost of cosmetic procedures and elective surgeries various by the type of procedures a client needs. Injections, Skin Resurfacing, Microdermabrasion, Laser Hair Removals ranges from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.

These procedures are sometimes finances through a point of sale financing option where the patient is underwritten for a financing product that’s specifically designed to pay for medical procedures. 

Sometimes, these financing options are not available because the patient’s credit or income is ineligible by the lenders or banks that are offering these financing products. In these cases, clinics or providers can offer a care now pay later product, essentially delivering the procedure and collect the total procedure cost through a series of payments.

These clinics need a financing system to take a downpayment and track subsequent payments until the procedure is fully paid off. Alchemy designed this system specifically for clinics to use to take on customers that are declined by their primary financing partner. The Alchemy has an easy onboarding application, a sophisticate decisioning process that can create risk based offers as well as mechanism to collect payments from patients at the time of the procedure as well as taking the remaining payments in an installment format.

When it comes to other type of common plastic surgeries such as Breast Augmentation and Facelift, these procedures could cost anywhere from a few thousands dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. 

Often, these procedures are financing by a lender or a bank. The clinic won’t be able to finance these procedures on their own because of the higher hard cost, such as the cost of implants. In these cases, banks and lenders can leverage Alchemy’s system to underwrite the patient and disburse payments to the clinic so that they can use the money up front to pay for the costs to deliver the procedures to the patients. The system will also collect repayments on behalf of the financing company or the bank from the patients after the procedure is completed.

Alchemy Medical Financing Software 

Alchemy’s medical financing software a comprehensive lending system that comprises all of the needs for a clinic as well as lenders to complete a full onboarding experience for the patient as well as loan management system that tracks down payment and loan repayments. 

KYC – Know your customer

To properly underwrite a patient and to follow lending laws at both federal and local level, a lender must conduct an identity verification process known as KYC or know your customer. Alchemy’s system is connected with various identity verification bureaus to provide the highest confidence when it comes to identity verification. Clinics and banks have a variety of vendors and products to choose from for their KYC process within the Alchemy ecosystem. 

KYB – Know your business

KYB is important when a lender, financing company or a bank is onboarding a clinic or a provider to finance their clients. The lender must conduct due diligence on whether the clinic or a medical provider is a real business.

Often, criminals will setup fake medical providers and submit fraudulent applications to lenders and banks and steal millions of dollars ear marked for medical procedures. Alchemy provides various KYB data sources to properly underwriting the medical clinic as well as the owner of the medical clinic to verify the legitimacy of the business before they are allowed to submit an application through the Alchemy system.

Medical Provider’s Portal

Alchemy’s medical provider’s portal is a feature rich platform where doctors can onboard clients, request disbursement from the lenders, taking downpayment as well as upsell clients with additional product and services. 

The portal allows administrators at the providers office to track all of their patients, medical history as well as loan history. The portal also works with the provider’s sales CRM system to provide a continuous experience for both the patient and the administrative staff.

Lender’s Portal

Lenders portal provides access to all application information, loan information as well as elements used in underwriting in addition to loan management tools to help lenders as well as patients to navigate through the rest of their loan repayment journey.

Lenders can onboard unlimited number of clinics to be part of the lender’s network. Lender can see all of the applications submitted by various clinics, reports and analytics can be produced to track the performance of each medical providers.

Broker’s Portal

Broker’s often advertise and advises potential customers of various financing options available for their medical treatment. Alchemy provides broker’s portal for them to send applications directly to their client and match lenders to provide the financing they need.

Brokers can see their applications submitted by them or by their clients. They can also track which lender was matched and ultimately funded their client. 

Brokers can maintain their own branding throughout the application process until the application is handed over to the lenders for disbursement and repayment.

Payments and Customer Portal

Alchemy system leverages both ACH, debit card rail or virtual cards to disburse payments to the doctors or clinics to pay for the procedure as well as taking down payments or repayments from patients.

All of the disbursement of the funds as well as loan repayments can easily be tracked in the Alchemy platform for reporting purposes. 

Payment reminders is also available to be sent out as an SMS or email to patients. Patients will also be able to log into their customer portal and make payments as well as add additional bank accounts and debit cards to process additional payments.

The customer portal will also show the customer all the payments made and how much they still owe to reduce the amount of calls to the clinic and the lenders themselves.

End to end financing platform

Whether you are thinking about an in-house financing solution for your clinic or you would like to providing a new experience to your clinics as a lender. The Alchemy system is an end to end solution to underwrite the entire credit spectrum.

If you are brokers and looking for a system to connect patients and lenders, we have a system for you to connect these dots with API integrations and transparency. 

Please contact us for a demo and we look forward to getting you onboard.

Team Alchemy