Everything You Should Know About Dental Insurance
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Keeping our teeth and the rest of our mouths healthy and clean is an important part of our overall health. However, even if you have the best oral hygiene routine possible, you will still need to visit the dentist. This could just be for a cleaning, an annual checkup, or even something like a filling or crown.
Unfortunately, these appointments and procedures can often come with some pretty hefty costs. These costs can sometimes keep people from visiting the dentist at all, which obviously isn’t a good idea. Thankfully, dental insurance exists and can help you control these costs.
But in order to get the best dental insurance possible, you need to truly understand what dental insurance is and how it works. With that in mind, this article is going to go over everything that you should know about dental insurance.
The Different Types of Dental Insurance
At its core, dental insurance offers you assistance in lowering the costs of your dental-related visits and procedures. However, not every type of dental insurance is created equally. There are PPO (preferred provider organization), DMHO (Dental Health Maintenance Organization), and many others.
While each provides coverage, they do so in a different way. A PPO includes a network of dentists and professionals that provide their services at a discount. You are required to use a dentist who is in-network for the best prices. These are often more restrictive, but have cheaper premiums.
A DMHO gives you more freedom when it comes to who you see (but those in-network will still be cheaper), but come with higher costs due to this flexibility and freedom. Also, each type has various different plans that may offer differing levels of coverage. So before you make the right choice, ensure you do a lot of research to ensure the plan you get meets your needs.
The Cost of Dental Insurance
Knowing the associated costs of insurance are another important thing to keep in mind. While the monthly premium can change depending on the plan, most people pay around $50 a month. In addition to premiums, you may also need to pay a deductible before you are able to use coverage.
Also, while many people think paying for dental insurance makes everything free, that isn’t always the case. While 100% of things like cleanings and checkups are usually covered, that’s generally it. Basic procedures like fillings will often be 80% covered, while more major procedures like bridges or crowns will only be 50% covered.
It is important to keep in mind that some plans will have maximum amounts they will cover each year. So always do your best to keep track of how much coverage you have used in a calendar year, to make sure you aren’t stuck with a huge bill that you weren’t expecting.
How to Choose the Best Dental Insurance
The ability to choose the best dental insurance is another thing you should know. With there being dozens of different options out there, the right choice for your friend or coworker might not always make sense for you.
You need to make sure that the plan you choose offers the coverage that you and your family need. If you are paying for the coverage of services you never need or use, it doesn’t make the most sense. The costs should also be manageable for your budget. The last thing you want is to get a plan that has premiums or deductibles that are too expensive for you to comfortably handle.
Take your time to compare different plans and do adequate levels of research to compare different options. If you are struggling, there are experts and professionals that can help you ensure you make the right choice.
Hopefully, this article has been able to help you learn everything you need to know about dental insurance.
