Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Dental Insurance vs. Dental Plans - Do Your Homework!

Just in case you are undecided or, even if you are currently insured for dental, you may want to take a look at the facts about dental insurance over a good dental plan. We recently did a presentation on this subject for a group of people in a 55+ community. Many were not even aware that there was an option for ordinary dental insurance coverage. Most had no coverage at all. Here are some facts that you may want to consider if you are trying to decide which way to go.
First, let me say that insurance companies are NOT in the business of paying claims...that is, they will ALWAYS pay less in claims than they receive in premiums. This may account for the continually rising costs in premiums over recent years, yes? Add to that the number of aging americans (Baby Boomers) entering the market with both health and dental health issues daily and insurance fraud, which is an ongoing and highly practiced thing. It isn't any wonder that so many things are no longer covered. That said, there are some stark differences between insurance and dental plans as a whole.

Dental insurance policies will have:

A limit or a "cap" on the number of procedures you can have done in a given year, usually $1000 to $1500. Anything over that is usually full fee.
A waiting period for pre-existing conditions, sometimes up to a year!
Referral requirements for specialists
Higher premiums in comparison to dental plans.
Age limits
Exclusions


Typical Dental Plan coverage has:

No waiting period
No limit on procedures done in a given year
No claim forms to fill out
No exclusions
No age limits
No referral requirements
A set schedule of benefits
Lower yearly fee for coverage

If you are in the market for dental insurance, please check out your options before you commit to anything. Better yet, ask your dentist! He or she will likely tell you that a good dental plan is the way to go. We have many dentists referring patients to us, and many members of our dental plan that have been with us for 20 years. You can't be wrong with that many happy customers!

Keep Smiling =}

1 comment:

Craig White said...

I think Dental Plans make so much more sense that traditional dental insurance in these tough economic times. There's no waiting period, no annual limits and significant savings on treatments, up to 60% some of the time. If you have insurance, it's worth noting that you can sometimes even use dental plans along with your dental insurance for even more savings on your care. Definitely worth looking at.