The most frequently asked questions by practices

Treatment Finance is a simple and affordable way for patients to spread the cost of treatment; whilst ensuring your business experiences an uplift in revenue and profit. Providing your patients with flexible monthly payment options enables them to take advantage of all dental procedures and treatment plans.

If you are offering your patients finance option from 0-12 months, you do not need an FCA licence. An FCA licence is only required for finance options of 12 months and over.

We are in partnership with Shawbrook Bank Limited who will fast track your application with no set up or processing fees.

We require three signed contracts that details the terms and conditions of the agreement, and three proofs necessary for the bank to process the application. Once these are provided, they will be sent over to the bank and your application will be processed within 72 hours.

Yes, you will receive an A5 Quick Application pad, Patient Brochures, Posters, a Training Guide, a Quick Start guide and a Dynamic Rate Calculator

You will have a designated account manager who will support you with any questions you may have about offering Treatment Finance as well as over-the-phone and email support from the administrative team. In addition, you will be provided with Monthly and Annual Statements as well as Quarterly Reviews.

Payments will be made direct to the designated practice bank account within 24 hours of the patient signing their loan agreement.

If a patient cancels their arrangement with the bank and the practice has been paid in full for the total treatment value, all funds will have to be paid back to the Shawbrook bank. Shawbrook will then make all the necessary arrangements to cancel all agreement. This will only apply if the patient is within the 14 day cooling off period.

Yes, there is a option on the Shawbrook portal to resend an email to the patient; this will provide the patient with a link to their application, asking them to go to the next stage. If the patient still is not receiving the email, please ask them to check their junk folder and add the email address to the safe senders list.

Once all of the paperwork has been sent to Shawbrook and you have become an approved Treatment Finance provider, you will receive an email from the Snowbird Admin Team providing you with your log in details and the link to the portal.

When you are logged into the portal you can view all of your applications on the dashboard, each application has a status option on it that shows where the application is in the process (please refer to your training pack for a detailed explanation of each action icon and status description).

This is dependent on where in the process the application is; if the patient has not yet signed the e-sig documents, yes. This simply requires the practice to go into the application and change the amount to finance. However, if the patient has already signed the documents, then a secondary application will have to be made. (There is a third option, which we would advise against, which would a loan reversal and the process being started again from the beginning).

Yes, you will need to click on the ‘Edit Application’ icon next to the patient’s application on the Shawbrook portal. You will then need to click on the pink circle and make the necessary changes. Once this is complete, you can resend the patient the email link by clicking on the envelope action icon.

Yes, applicants who are students also need to be working at least 16 hours per week in order to qualify for finance.

Yes, applicants must have lived within the UK for a minimum of three years and be a registered British Citizen in order to be able to apply for finance.

This completely varies and depends on the speed of the patient; deals can go through within 15 minutes and be paid out the following day, or can take weeks if the patient is not progressing onto the following stages of the process.

There are some email signatures within the training pack that can be sent to the patient to remind them about going on to the next stage of the process. Also, patients automatically receive a reminder email after 7, 14 and 21 days of their application being accepted in order to take them to the e-signature process.

Once an application is approved, the patient has 30 days to complete the e-signature process in order for the deal to be ‘executed’ and then ‘paid out’ by Shawbrook.

Once the application goes to ‘Paid Out’ status, you will receive the money within 1-2 working days. You will then be sent the remittance advice for that deal the following day. Please keep a copy of this for Gabriel reporting.

Yes, you can print out the forms for the patient to sign in ink, and scan over copies of these to hil@shawbrook.co.uk quoting the application reference number which can be found on the Shawbrook Portal Dashboard.

No, patients follow a secure link that is emailed to them; the first one is for them to complete their application and submit it and the second is for those who have been approved to complete the e-signature process.

The bank portal is completely secure and uses HTTPS as the domain prefix, which means that the communication between your browser and the website is fully encrypted meaning your personal data is always protected when being received and sent.

Yes, once the patient starts their repayments, they are more than entitled to make additional payments to the finance agreement each month. There will be a number on the Letter the patient receives from Shawbrook to advise this.

You can call the Shawbrook Portal Help Desk on 0345 600 7680 or alternatively you can call Dion at Snowbird on 01932 874 674 who will be happy to assist you. You can also email her at dion@snowbirdfinance.co.uk if the question is not urgent.