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Predatory Lenders in the Operating Room
Christopher Crim’s troubles started when his husband, who has cystic fibrosis and is in end-of-life hospice care, needed a tooth pulled. Crim took him to a dentist near their home in Tennessee, and while he was in the bathroom, the dentist pulled all of his husband’s teeth, not one, and left a bone sticking out of his husband’s gums.
The ensuing pain was so severe that his husband couldn’t sleep, even on morphine and oxycodone. So Crim rushed him to a new dentist, who estimated that surgery to fix the problem would cost $6,000. Crim and his husband didn’t have that kind of money. His husband is on Medicaid, but they couldn’t find any providers who would accept the dental coverage. Hospice has already forced them to sell their house and drain their savings. “Everything’s gone,” he said.
After the dentist agreed to shave a bit off the price, and after Crim pawned their wedding bands, he still faced a balance of about $1,500. That’s when he was taken into the back of the office, and a female employee told him he could cover the remainder with a CareCredit card. The cards, issued by Synchrony Bank, can only be used at participating providers to cover medical charges.
Immediately, Crim was approved for $1,500 in credit, and he remembers the woman telling him it was interest-free for the first year. She filled everything out on a computer and then handed him a stack of papers to sign. His husband was still in pain, waiting to be operated on. “We were in a hurry to get him back there and get his mouth fixed, so I just signed,” he said. He never got a copy of the paperwork. “He was suffering so bad, and I thought, ‘Whatever it costs, whatever I have to do to make him comfortable while he’s dying, I’ll do it,’” he said. “I couldn’t have been more vulnerable.”
https://prospect.org/health/2025-05-28-predatory-lenders-operating-room-medical-credit-cards/
The ensuing pain was so severe that his husband couldn’t sleep, even on morphine and oxycodone. So Crim rushed him to a new dentist, who estimated that surgery to fix the problem would cost $6,000. Crim and his husband didn’t have that kind of money. His husband is on Medicaid, but they couldn’t find any providers who would accept the dental coverage. Hospice has already forced them to sell their house and drain their savings. “Everything’s gone,” he said.
After the dentist agreed to shave a bit off the price, and after Crim pawned their wedding bands, he still faced a balance of about $1,500. That’s when he was taken into the back of the office, and a female employee told him he could cover the remainder with a CareCredit card. The cards, issued by Synchrony Bank, can only be used at participating providers to cover medical charges.
Immediately, Crim was approved for $1,500 in credit, and he remembers the woman telling him it was interest-free for the first year. She filled everything out on a computer and then handed him a stack of papers to sign. His husband was still in pain, waiting to be operated on. “We were in a hurry to get him back there and get his mouth fixed, so I just signed,” he said. He never got a copy of the paperwork. “He was suffering so bad, and I thought, ‘Whatever it costs, whatever I have to do to make him comfortable while he’s dying, I’ll do it,’” he said. “I couldn’t have been more vulnerable.”
https://prospect.org/health/2025-05-28-predatory-lenders-operating-room-medical-credit-cards/
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