3 Things You Ought to Know About your Dental Insurance

For many patients, the hardest thing about getting oral healthcare has nothing to do with the procedure itself, and more to do with figuring out how to pay for it. Even if you have dental insurance, you might be surprised by its differences from medical insurance and be unsure about what you can expect it to pay for.

To help you a little bit, here are a few things you might not have known about dental insurance and what it can do for you.

Dental Insurance Includes a Yearly Maximum

One of the main things that sets dental insurance apart from its medical equivalent is the existence of the yearly maximum. This refers to the absolute most that a dental insurance company is willing to pay for dental care over the course of a given year.

After this point, all of the dental care that you receive will have to be paid for out of pocket. This means that it’s often smart to spread out your most expensive dental care over the course of several years, ensuring that you do not exceed this maximum.

Dental Insurance Covers Different Care at Different Rates

For the most part, dental insurance is designed so that the insurance company pays for a percentage of the care that you receive. This percentage depends on the type of care that you’re getting.

Dental insurance will usually cover 100% of your preventive care, like checkups and cleanings. Minor restorative care, like fillings, are usually covered at a rate of around 80%, and major treatments like root canals are usually 50% covered.

Many dental insurance companies also offer two complimentary checkups and cleanings each year. A consequence of this is that preventive care is usually drastically less expensive than other kinds of treatment.

Your Dental Benefits Don’t Roll Over

This is something that medical insurance and dental insurance share but is important enough to be worth reiterating. Once the new year begins, the dental benefits that you’ve received thus far will be reset. This means that you’ll have to pay your deductible all over again, and you’ll lose out on any complementary preventive services you’ve yet to use.

If you want to get the most out of the money that you’ve spent, you should make it a point to use all the services available to you before the year ends.

About the Author

Dr. Hiren Shah has been in dentistry for over a decade, and he still finds it incredibly gratifying to be a part of his patients’ smile journeys. Getting to meet new people, helping them navigate the field of dentistry, and seeing the results of his hard work is enormously gratifying for him. Dr. Shah received his dental degree from Rutgers University and has completed over 1000 hours in advanced education.

If you have any questions about dental insurance, he can be reached at his website or by phone at (908) 834-8448.