Does anybody know anything about dental discount plans?

Hey all,

Here's the scoop:
I have crappy teeth, and I'm currently without dental insurance. I can't get on my parents insurance because I'm not a full time student, and the insurance my work offers is just a pre-paid/discount plan -- they don't pay a dime into it.

Besides the fact that they don't pay a dime into it, I can't enroll in it until I've been with them for 90 days, and I don't even know if I'm going to work for them for 90 days. Furthermore, I've done a little research on the internet, and I think I can find a better plan cheaper, and start coverage tomorrow instead of 10 weeks from now.

Now, does anybody know anything about these plans? Because it seems like there are a billion of them and no good way of figuring out which one is best for my needs. Any website I've found with information seems to be an affiliate site insurance clearinghouse that's mostly there to sell the plans.

I am looking seriously at the Careington and GE Family Wellness Plans. I initially felt like the discount plans were kind of a "lower class" of insurance than real dental insurance, and if your employer has a good dental insurance program, they probably are. But after researching a little, it looks like any traditional dental plan I can get on right now is only going to cover as much cost of the procedure as the discount plan claims to cover, but the traditional insurance costs more. For example, one of the traditional plans I found is $18 a month, and covers ~%50 of X-Rays. Well the GE Wellness plan is $80 a year, or $6.50 a month, and should provide about a ~%50 discount on XRays.

Anybody around that can shed a little more light on this topic?

What I was told about these types of plans by my dentist was that they give discounts by operating on the principle of quantity over quality. A procedure that she might have needed an hour to do properly they would try to do in 15 or 20 minutes. Still, they might be OK for basic stuff like cleaning or X-rays. I probably wouldn't trust them for a deep filling, a root canal, or a crown. The old adage you get what you pay for is usually true.

BTW, I'm in the same boat as you. Last dental visit for me was ~1995. My teeth seem OK, at least outside of a filling in a wisdom tooth which partially came out. However, with prices being what they are, and no insurance, I just haven't been able to afford to go to the dentist.

...they give discounts by operating on the principle of quantity over quality....

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Are you sure she wasn't talking about HMOs, which pay the dentist on a per-patient basis, vs. per-procedure? It is my understanding that the discount plans merely provide a discount at the dentist. Though how they do that I'm not sure.

Saaby said:

Are you sure she wasn't talking about HMOs, which pay the dentist on a per-patient basis, vs. per-procedure? It is my understanding that the discount plans merely provide a discount at the dentist. Though how they do that I'm not sure.

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I'm 100% sure she wasn't referring to HMOs, although the quantity over quality principal is the same. The plans provide a discount by sending the dentist a lot of work. The dentist is willing to charge less because he/she knows they will get enough patients to fill all the time slots and then some. What this usually means is having to do things somewhat faster than the accepted norm and/or just referring patients with more complex problems to specialists while handling only the basic, "cookie-cutter" work. I'm not saying these dentists on the list are bad. They're probably competent. It's just that by the nature of these plans they'll probably lack the ability or time to deal with anything much out of the ordinary. If all you need are shallow fillings then you'll probably be OK. If you have anything major or unusual, they might not spend enough time on you.

I don't know much about the plans that are for specific groups of dentists, where you're required to use dentists that are in the plan. Those do seem to be more of a discount plan than an insurance plan. Even the insurance plan, doesn't appear totally different than a discount plan. The insurance plan generally gets better after you've been with it for a few years. Of course a few years of good dental care, leaves later years of generally little cost to the insurance company beyond basic cleaning, examinations, or an occasional filling. Out of pocket expense at the start will be determined by what's needed.

The insurance plan generally has a ceiling on benefits. As an example, some may pay a limit of $1500 in a year. Working with that ceiling, may require a work plan from your dentist that attempts to accomplish the highest priorities within that ceiling, and then working on new priorities the next year.

Your first year, the insurance may only pay perhaps 60% of covered expenses. The second year they may move to 70%, the next 80%, 90%, and finally 100%. By then the drastic procedures have been done, and since yearly visits are required, then expenses are mostly maintenance expenses thereafter.

Well now that I'm all paranoid about using a discount plan :sigh:

That's just what I am going to have to do though. I'll double check, but in scouring the web I only found 1 place that even pulled up a private insurance plan. So I think I'm going to just go with one of the discount plans and hope I get a good dentist.

I am still suspicious about that though. One of the dentists I found is the same one my sister is going to, and loves, but who just moved practices. My point is that dentist takes traditional insurance too, so how would the dentist even know or care who your insurance is through, that is usually handled through the front-of-office, right? Or in other words, if the dentist took a discount plan and also took traditional insurance, would he know what type of patient you were?

I don't know how much my dental insurance would be if I paid out of pocket, but I have Aetna dental and it has a $1500 a year limit. I just did my 6 month checkup and what would of been $260 without it, I paid $50.

I've got several dentists/endos as friends. Talk to your dentist, or to whomever you are looking at.

If you're paying cash, you can negotiate a very good discount.

The greatest failing I've noticed in dental plans is that they cap out annually at around $1500 to $1800. One root canal or crown can eat that up. So if your teeth require significant work, you really are force to pay the bulk out of pocket. And practically speaking, very little of it is deductible from your taxes.

Try this nightmare on for size. My wife grew up in eastern europe under the communists. Dental care was pathetic (She remembers having the remains of a broken tooth chisled out of her jaw without anesthesia). A few years ago, she was having lots of problems structurally in her mouth. So we find THE specialist at rebuilding mouths, who happens to work in San Francisco. We go in and his charge is $5000 for an evaluation. Then the estimate for the rebuild - "a mid-sized Mercedes" was his literal answer. When pressed, he threw out the figure of $125,000 PLUS lab work (approx $20,000).:sick2:
BTW, we have no dental insurance.
We walked. Found a better dentist at half the price and felt happy. Is that sick? Thank God for equity lines.
I've thought alot about the insurance problem and for those who can do it, a medical savings plan may be the only way to really cover significant dental bills and be able to deduct them from your taxes.

I actually have some insight into this area, as we (our family) faced similar challenges. I am the one who has had the most teeth related challenges, and my wife and kids are the ones who do the most preventative care. I suppose there is a lesson in there I should learn.

In any event, my wife found a "discount plan" called "Aetna Vital Savings". It is not insurance, it is a discount card. Unlike the similarly named medical discount plans, this one actually works - at least around here.

The basic idea is
- I buy for around $ 100 / year, a discount card (not from Aetna, but from a third party reseller)
- Aetna gets none of this money
- The dentist gets none of this money
- The third party "appears" to pay Aetna an annual fee for the right to sell a "discount card" that lets the end user (us) pay the same rates to the dentist that Aetna would pay the dentist if we had "real" insurance. The difference in retail rate vs what insurance would pay is quite substantial. If I could get that kind of pricing for all of my medical needs, it would be fantastic.

The part that seems kind of crazy, is that our dentist (a guy we know very well for a long time) does not seem to be able to offer us the same pricing that we can get (from him) for the same services and this discount card - even if we gave him the $ 100. We asked - 3 x. Yes, it seems crazy to us too.

In any event, here are a couple of examples I have seen for getting reduced pricing dental care from quality dentist / endodontists. The dentists appear to treat it like a standard priced item policy from Aetna.

a) Cleanings - 25 % savings plus X rays are about 1/2.
b) Root canals (by an experienced endodontist that I know way too well)
- San Jose, CA area - about $ 1200 retail - will not discount. With the card - $ 900 - just had to ask before I went in to double check. Interestingly, I was on a business trip, and nearly had a root canal done in Boise ID - also by a very experienced endo - $ 950 retail. - had not asked about the discount card.
- Crown - I think it was around $ 800 - 850 with the card, 1100 without.

The point, is that it really does work, and if you live in a more pricey area, sometimes you can save a lot on dental work by going to a dentist / endo in a lower cost of living area.

BTW, I am a big believer in using an endo for ALL root canals. This is ALL these guys do, and they have every tool in the book for doing a perfect job with less pain. I like my dentist a lot - and he has a lot of skill / time in the business, but there just is no comparison.

One thing I have learned over time - a lot of tooth problems are from stomach acid - which is why the back teeth are often affected first. Get your stomach acid under control, and rinse multiple times a day with mouthwash to keep the acid off of your teeth.

Good luck.

BTW - I have no affiliation with Aetna or any other insurance company.

Hey! Welcome back!!!

- Vikas

Clinton, Obama Spar over Dental Plans
Nomination Fight Shifts to Voters' Mouths

In an unprecedented bid to garner support before the crucial Texas and Ohio primaries, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama today both unveiled universal dental plans.

With both candidates in agreement on a broad range of issues, the two rivals appear to be hoping that late-deciding voters will support the candidate who offers the best dental.

Speaking to 400 supporters in a high school cafeteria in Cleveland, Ohio today, Sen. Clinton made an emotional appeal to voters, saying that she has been "working to keep Americans' teeth healthy and shiny" for the past 35 years.

"When I was campaigning in Cincinnati yesterday, I met a mother of two who had a horrible overbite," she said. "I told her, I will be ready to get braces on those choppers on Day One."

Sen. Clinton was harshly critical of Sen. Obama's dental plan, which she said "would leave 15 million people without bridgework or root canals."

For his part, Sen. Obama blasted Sen. Clinton's proposal at a stadium in Beaumont, Texas, where he spoke to a capacity crowd of over 90,000 people.

"Sen. Clinton's plan only offers five dollars for every tooth extracted," he said. "The tooth fairy gives you more than that."

But in a possible preview of the fall general election campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) blasted both Democratic rivals in a speech at an El Paso retirement home: "My friends, neither of their plans says anything about dentures."

Elsewhere, President Bush expressed support for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, telling reporters, "Just because somebody didn't get the most votes doesn't mean he shouldn't be president."

(Copied from http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=6839&srch= )

Ok I signed up with Atena today. That's not the ones I was looking at at all, but they had bar none the best coverage in my area. I was going to get it through an affiliate site, but they were forcing yearly billing on me. I thought I was going to get a good deal, because I had a discount code.

Well just for kicks I just went straight to the Atena website. They had an option to bill me monthly, instead of yearly (same cost), and although they charged a processing fee, they were cheaper than the affiliate site.

So as soon as my card arrives I should be good to go.

Vikaas - Hey :wave:

Saaby - can you tell us how much it was ?

The Aetna plan is the first legit/decent plan that I've heard of. Most are nothing but marketing ploys that benefit no one but the seller.

Usually the best approach is direct negotiation with a dentist.

I'm also uninsured, but I'm fortunate to live where there is a large dental school. I've been a part of their program for a few years now and have been very happy with the treatment that I have received. I pay 40-60% less than market rates for services.

Work is done by students under close supervision of profs (licensed practicing professionals). The only downfall is time. Your appointment is a 3 hour block of time, so you're not in and out in 30-60 minutes.

BTW, the school has quite a few LDS students from the SLC area there in Utah every year.

when I lived in New York I had alot of work done for free at the NYU Dental School..as kite said, the drawback is time; you have to wait for the prof to come around and check the work..after three hours they break for lunch, and then after lunch you need another shot...but it's free.
I got so tired of the injections, I had a root canal done with no anesthesia; it really didn't hurt that much..

They charged me a $15 non-refundable setup fee, and then $6 a month, for a grand total of $87, or really $7.25 a month. Judging on my dental past (I'm just barely legal age and I have 2 crowned-root canals) I think I'll make up the $87, though at the same time I hope not!

Only bad thing about the plan is it doesn't kick in coverage right away. I hardly have to wait for 90+ days, but I do have to wait a week or so for them to mail everything out. Others give you temp cards you can print out and start using immediately.