Dental Erie Insurance

Maintaining your oral health is essential to a healthy lifestyle. Most people want to make the commitment to improve their oral health, but have a hard time choosing between traditional dental insurance and a dental discount program.

Therefore it’s important to understand how the differences between dental insurance and dental discount programs can affect you.

Dental insurance policies can be typically characterized by monthly premiums, deductibles and annual maximums while dental discount programs are designed to be as accessible as possible; they do not share any of the characteristics of dental insurance.

The monthly premiums for typical dental insurance policies may be as much as $50 a month for individuals and in excess of $100 per month for family plans.

As an alternative, dental discount programs are far less expensive. Dental discount programs start as low as $6.95 per month for individuals, $11.95 per month for couples and $15.95 per month for families. In addition, if you shop around you can find dental discount plans that include free vision care.

Usually, people using dental insurance must meet a deductible before their dental insurance starts to cover their dental care; when making comparisons it’s therefore important to consider the cost of the deductible as one of the overall costs associated with dental insurance.

Annual deductibles typically vary from $50 to $100 per covered individual; it is difficult to put an actual cost on the deductible because it depends on the specific dental insurance policy owned.

Dental discount programs do not have deductibles. Instead, dental discount program members pay a membership fee that qualifies them to pay discounted rates at participating dentists at the time services are rendered.

Most dental insurance plans cap the amount of reimbursement to an annual maximum that is typically $1,000 to $1,500 per year. The insured person is then responsible for any costs over and above the annual maximum.

Dental discount programs do not have annual maximums. Program members are able to use their discount dental cards as often and as much as they want to. There is absolutely no limit to the amount of money members can save by using their dental discount program.

Individual Dental Insurance VS Dental Discount Plans - The Results Are In And You May Be Surprised

Is individual dental insurance really your best option or is a dental discount plan the way to go? This is a question that is driving some consumers crazy because they don't know which way to go and want to make the correct choice the first time. After all, dental, like most insurance, is not cheap. It's about time that someone actually took the time to compare these two plans, so I'll take the time and compare these two for you.

Dental insurance is the traditional choice because discount plans didn't even exist until the early 1990's. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that they're better. If that were the case, then why have dental discount plans been able to stick around for 15 years now?

The big problem with these plans is that they ARE insurance. Think about it for a moment. If you wreck your car and only have liability coverage, do you think that you'll be able to go and get full coverage and have it repaired? Of course not! The insurance companies aren't dumb. Well, dental insurance works the same, individual and family. If you have pre-existing conditions you'll have to wait at least a year before your policy will help you at all. Even then the help you get will be very small. Individual dental insurance is only designed to provide preventive dentistry, like cleanings, ect., not major dental. This means that if you are in pain right now an individual dental insurance policy won't pay for one thing.

Dental discount plans are honestly your best choice because they are designed to save you money on both preventive AND major dental and you can see a participating dentist or specialist within one to three days after you join the plan. Since they're not insurance, existing problems are fine and there's no claim paperwork to process. Simply pay for your discounted fee at the time of your visit and you're finished. Most plans offer savings of between ten & sixty percent.

Summary

Individual dental insurance is outdated and doesn't provide the care that you need. If you're thinking of buying an individual dental plan, then dental discount plans are by far your best option.