Dental Insurance & How It Works
Dental insurance is a highly complex area that creates confusion for many dental patients. The complexities of dental insurance and the lack of sufficient information provided by some insurance companies make it almost impossible for some patients to properly understand their benefits. Even more confusing is understanding how to properly work with your dental insurance company to achieve the highest level of benefits to which you are entitled. Dental insurance is a contract between your employer and a dental insurance company. The benefits that you will receive are based on the terms of the contract that were negotiated between your employer and the dental insurance company and not your dental office. The goal of most dental insurance policies is to provide only basic care for specific dental services. The services selected are based on the cost of the policy to your employer and the negotiated arrangements with the dental insurance company. Because the benefits you currently have are decided between your employer and the insurance company, many services are not covered. The selection of noncovered services is not based on what you need or want but is based strictly on the contract with the insurance company.
Unfortunately, some of the services that you may need or want will not be covered by your dental insurer. Our goal is to help you achieve and maintain optimal dental care, which is not necessarily the goal of your dental insurance company. The goal of the insurance company is to provide only the negotiated benefits for the specifically selected service. The reimbursement mechanism from your dental insurance company is merely a mathematical formula as to which benefits you will receive and the percentage of the dentist’s office fee that will be paid. We do not want to compromise your care based on restraints placed by an insurance company.
Another fact that most dental patients do not realize is that each dental insurance plan has a dollar amount limitation each year. Once this limit is reached, no other services will be covered by your dental insurance company regardless of how essential the service may be to your dental health.
Some services are typically not covered by dental insurance companies. These include cosmetic dentistry, implants, occlusion or bite redesign, and other services. Although these are important dental services that can greatly enhance the quality of life of our patients, dental insurance companies do not feel that they should have to pay for these services. That is why these services are rarely included in contracts with your employer.
Any time you have a question about your dental insurance, please feel free to ask us. We recognize that dental insurance is becoming more complex and more difficult to understand every day. This is often due to the quest by dental insurance companies to reduce costs through continual changes. Keep in mind that the dental insurance companies are not concerned about coverage for optimal dental care, but provide coverage for only a limited number of basic services.
Our office remains dedicated to providing optimal care for every patient and working with you to achieve that goal. We pride ourselves on helping you in any way and in continuing to provide the quality of care to which you have become accustomed.
Dental Touch Associates accept Blue Dental and Delta Dental.
