A good dental plan should provide you with regular diagnostic and preventive dental care. This is the type of treatment that will help to minimize the number of dental problems that you experience over your lifetime. For those times when a problem is found, the ideal dental plan will also absorb some of the costs of the treatment you require, so to make it more affordable for you.
As discussed on the initial page of this topic, the most fundamental characteristic of a dental plan is that it provides for regular and on going diagnostic and preventive dental care. Most of the dental problems that a person will encounter throughout their lifetime will be those that could have been avoided or significantly minimized if they were just diagnosed and dealt with at an early stage. Treating a dental problem before it gets out of hand can significantly reduce the amount of time, money, and effort needed to correct it.
Read through the details of the dental insurance plan you are considering and evaluate the coverage they offer for preventive and diagnostic procedures. It would be expected that all dental patients would require, at minimum, the dental care measures outlined below. A dental plan should make these benefits very affordable, or even better yet, cover them at 100%.
When a dental problem is identified, it is always best to have the dental treatment that is required to rectify it performed in the time frame suggested by your dentist. While it is not expected that the typical dental plan will cover the entire cost of this treatment, ideally it should provide enough assistance that the care is easily within the individual's financial reach. Many dental plans will cover 70 to 80 percent of the cost of the following types of dental work. The term "basic dental services" is often used to reference these types of dental procedures and treatments.
More involved dental procedures (often referred to as "major dental services" by dental insurance companies) are usually covered less fully by a dental plan than "basic" and preventive dental procedures. By structuring a dental plan to provide generous benefits for prevention and early detection of dental disease, the hope is that only a minimal amount of "major" dental care will ever be required. Many dental plans cover 50 percent of the cost of "major dental services." Some of the types of dental work that are classified as "major" dental procedures are:
A dental plan may claim that it provides benefits that will cover a certain set percentage of your dental treatment costs, but be sure to read the fine print of the policy. The methodology by which a dental plan determines payment can be fairly convoluted, seemingly always to benefit the insurance company selling the plan.
Determine if the percentage is based on the actual cost of the treatment (the fee charged by the dentist) or else an amount the dental insurance company has unilaterally decided that the treatment should cost. These amounts can be two entirely different figures. (Use this link for information about some of the methods dental insurance companies use to calculate the amount they will pay.)
In some cases an individual might possibly be able to judge what their expenses might be when utilizing a dental plan without actually enrolling in it and utilizing it. However, if you have either of the following information sources available to you when evaluating a dental plan make sure you take advantage of them:
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