Credit Builders:
Building Healthier Financial Lives

Credit is a catalyst for opportunity. Synchrony is showcasing the stories of the people transforming their credit to unlock pathways to empowerment and life’s possibilities.

Finding Financial Freedom: When a Credit Journey Shapes a Life Journey

Kelly Gray stood in her backyard, enjoying the view of her rescue animals moving throughout the pasture. For years, she'd spent her free time creating a haven for abandoned animals — from horses and goats to dogs and chickens.

Not long ago, this wouldn’t have been possible. After getting divorced, Gray faced a new reality that many divorcees go through: no credit history in her own name. How was she supposed to get a mortgage? A car loan? Or even rent a home?

Just as Gray was determined to help animals who seemed hopeless, she was determined to build her way back to financial freedom.

“Credit isn’t just about numbers on a screen,” says Gray, now a senior copywriter for Synchrony. “It’s about having choices when life throws its hardest challenges at you. It’s about never having to choose between saving an animal or paying rent.”

With her passion for rescue animals driving her forward, CareCredit – Synchrony’s credit card for health and wellness products and services – gave her a pathway to build credit in her own name while she rebuilt her life.

“I was first approved for a small amount to help cover the cost of surgery for one of my goats,” said Gray. “I only charged what I could pay off, and while it took time, I began building my credit.”

Through a combination of mentorship, determination, and the right financial tools, she discovered something unexpected: building credit can be empowering.

As a credit builder herself, Gray has discovered a new passion – helping to empower other women to do the same. Through her involvement with various women’s support networks, she is using her experience to inspire over 10,000 other women, actively coaching them on the basics of financial literacy and how to build their own credit as an important element of a healthier financial future.

With firsthand experience of how good credit helps support more choice – from securing housing and transportation to handling medical emergencies for both people and their beloved pets, for Gray credit is so much more than a number. It’s a catalyst for confidence.

“Good credit can really bolster self-esteem and create a sense of belonging in a world where financial credibility matters,” said Gray. “For people recovering from major life transitions, getting approved for credit isn’t just a financial milestone, but enables the pursuit of what matters most.”

Gray’s story demonstrates how credit builds more than just financial security – it builds resilience. When her divorce left her starting over, her positive CareCredit history helped her secure housing. When Hurricane Helene caused damage to her house and animal enclosures, Synchrony’s Pay Later program at Lowe’s made repairs possible. Through it all, working hard to raise her credit score became positive and uplifting. Each point represents another step forward.

“Good credit is almost as important as good health,” Gray reflects. “Whether you’re rebuilding your life or just beginning, becoming a credit builder transforms your relationship with credit. The struggle, the times when you want to throw your hands up, those times are not just about numbers, but about having the power to replace financial fear with financial freedom.”

CareCredit: A Tool for Personal and Financial Wellness

When Kelly Gray found herself starting over after her divorce, she faced twin challenges: caring for her rescued animals and rebuilding her credit history from scratch. Her solution came in an unexpected form — CareCredit, a specialized financing tool that would prove transformative for both her pets’ wellbeing and her financial health.

CareCredit stands apart in the financial marketplace with its focus on healthcare expenses that fall outside traditional insurance coverage. This specialization has created an impressive network spanning more than 270,000 health and wellness provider locations nationwide. The reach is staggering: 80% of dental practices, 72% of veterinary clinics, and 90% of eye surgeons.

With more than 1,400 new locations joining monthly, cardholders experience remarkable continuity across their wellness journey, whether visiting dentists, specialty surgical centers, vision retailers, or veterinary emergency rooms.

The true innovation of CareCredit lies in its seamless integration directly into health and wellness providers’ systems. Unlike conventional financing options that enter the picture after treatment decisions are made, CareCredit can become an integral part of the initial care planning discussion.

This fundamental shift helps create a more holistic approach to healthcare financing that benefits everyone involved. Patients gain clarity about payment options before making treatment decisions, while providers can focus on recommending optimal care.

For consumers like Gray, CareCredit offers valuable promotional financing options at enrolled provider locations and select retailers in the CareCredit network. Cardholders can pay for purchases over time without paying interest if the promotional balance is paid in full by the end of the promotional period.

Synchrony recognizes that responsible credit management requires clear understanding, which is why they’re launching Fair Financing Principles for CareCredit. These principles aim to help consumers better understand how the card works and how they can effectively manage their credit to both pay for care and build a healthier financial future.

Gray’s disciplined approach to CareCredit illustrates how it can serve dual purposes. By consistently making on-time payments and maintaining low utilization of her available credit, she established positive payment behaviors reported to credit bureaus. This contributed significantly to her credit score improvement while ensuring her animals received necessary treatments.

For someone rebuilding financially after a major life transition, this balance of having a way to pay for immediate care access and long-term credit improvement proved genuinely transformative.

The Financial Pulse Behind Healthy Provider Operations

Behind every health decision, from a dental crown to an emergency pet surgery, stands an often-overlooked component: accessible financing. Across veterinary clinics and dental offices alike, CareCredit is reshaping how the cost of out of pocket care is managed the moment it matters.

When a family cat arrived with a life-threatening obstruction, Dr. Alex White witnessed firsthand how CareCredit helped transform a crisis into a success story.

“Recently a client used CareCredit to fund a life-saving surgery for their pet, leading to a full recovery,” the Virginia-based veterinarian explains. “This financing option directly influences the [scope] and timeliness of care that pets can receive.”

What many patients don’t see is how financial solutions like CareCredit revolutionize the business operations behind the medicine. Far from being just a convenience for clients, these payment options can help transform how practices function.

CareCredit was designed to enhance providers’ businesses, not weigh them down. Traditional medical billing may create cash flow challenges for healthcare practices, with payment cycles sometimes stretching months after services are rendered. CareCredit’s model disrupts this pattern by providing payment to providers within days for amounts not covered by insurance.

And by handling all payment responsibilities, CareCredit has freed Dr. White and her team to concentrate on delivering exceptional medicine rather than managing payment plans.

While there is a processing fee she pays when pet families pay using CareCredit, Dr. White considers it a worthwhile investment in her practice’s financial health: one that has helped her expand services, improve patient outcomes, and build stronger relationships with pet owners who appreciate having a flexible payment option during medical emergencies.

The impact extends beyond individual cases into the broader community. Those pet owners who benefit include Kelly Gray, an avid animal rescue hero whose own pet financing stories have served to empower other pet owners. “Kelly is such a fun, loving, eccentric personality and her pets mirror her,” Dr. White shares. “All of the Gray Crew are so special, and we’re lucky to be part of their care team.”

The dual benefits of CareCredit – for both patients and providers – extend well beyond veterinary medicine. Dr. Brian Harris, a practicing dentist in Phoenix, AZ, has had a similar experience to Dr. White’s.

“We’ve built our brand here at Harris Dental around this idea of quality dentistry, but more importantly taking really, really good care of people in our practice,” said Dr. Harris. “I feel really strongly that it is our responsibility to help our patients understand what their options are when it comes to paying for treatment.”

Dr. Harris’ office has treatment care coordinators whose primary role is just to help patients understand what their options are when it comes to paying for their treatment, including financing options. That can be everything from FSA to credit cards including CareCredit, to in-office monthly payments.

This financial flexibility isn’t just changing individual patient experiences, it’s helping reshape healthcare practices, which can help treatment acceptance rates rise and can improve patient satisfaction. Healthcare outcomes may get better when decisions are based on patient choice rather than out of pocket cost. The end result could be a healthier future, both personally and financially.