The insurance designed to pay the costs related to dental care is known as dental insurance which pays a portion of the bills from hospital, dentists and other service providers. Thus dental insurance safeguards people from unexpected financial hardships.
The pain of toothache can be unbearable and lack of a good health plan and neglecting the teeth will only make the problem worse. Growing children need braces or other orthodontic devices, which may be unprecedented. In such situations, dental care insurance would help in unloading the pain and expenses.
In fact, dental insurance was introduced mainly for the rich section of the society, but the need for proper dental health is important to every one. Therefore, the insurers offer a unique cover where a person chooses a dentist’s attention whenever necessary. The package covers a group, an individual or a family and the premiums are based on the age of the clients. Dental insurance takes care of regular dental health check up and pays for dental ailments like bridges, root problems, root canal problems and crowns, tooth filling and other necessary tooth maintenance bills.
But this cover does not apply for ailments related to oral thrush or oral cancer.
Other ailments that are not covered are removal of roots in the gums surgically, salivary gland problems and abscesses in the mouth, which cannot be clustered as dental problems. Since children are more prone to dental problems in their childhood, it is imperative to have dental insurance.
The program is so flexible that the client is free to choose his doctor and he goes to him for dental treatment, presents the bills to the insurer and claims the expenses incurred. This program has a drawback in the sense that an unscrupulous client may convince a dentist to make a higher claim.
Dental insurance plans are available in two types, Preferred Provider Organization and Dental Health Maintenance Organization. In the preferred provider organization dental health plan, a group of clients can visit any one of the paid dentists and receive a discount on dental health care, which is mutually beneficial to the dentist and the patient because the dentist can cater to a large number of customers. If the patient chooses to see a dentist who is not designed as a “preferred provider” then, the patient may be needed to pay a larger share of the fee-for service. This plan has monthly premiums, annual dollar cap and stay with the network of dentists or pays higher deductibles and co-payments.
In a dental health organization plan, the dentist is compelled to provide services at “below cost” rates and may not be able to spend as much time as in the first plan thus affecting the patient-dentist relationship.
Indemnity dental insurance is another plan where the plan pays the dentist on a traditional fee-for-service basis. The client pays a monthly premium to an insurance company, which then reimburses the dentist. Whatever be the type of insurance, it is imperative to find an insurance policy that is suitable to the client and his family.
