Dental financing (PatientFi) jumped to 30% interest, payments not touching principal. Will this act like medical debt or credit debt if I stop paying?
Hi, I’m trying to figure out what to do and I’m honestly really frustrated.
I financed dental work through PatientFi at my dentist. My understanding when I signed up was that it would be about $120/month for around 2 years and then it would be paid off. I also thought I had until around February to finish paying it before anything changed.
I didn’t fully understand that after that period, the interest would kick in at 30% APR (I had a dental emergency and needed to work). Once that happened, the balance jumped a lot and now I owe almost $2,000 total (about $971 principal + a ton of interest).
I just made a $150 payment and $0 went to principal, all of it went to interest. So it feels like I’m just throwing money away and not actually paying anything down.
At this point I’m considering just stopping payments because I can’t afford to keep paying when nothing reduces the balance.
My questions:
- Will this behave like medical debt if it goes to collections?
- Or will it behave like credit card debt / personal loan debt?
I’m not trying to avoid paying entirely, I just literally can’t afford to keep making payments that don’t touch the principal.