We know many dental patients find the ins & outs of dental insurance confusing, but if you have dental insurance the most important thing for you to know is that you get two free cleanings per year!

Nearly all dental insurance plans are set up in favor of preventive care. Most plan benefits cover two annual teeth cleanings (also referred to as hygiene or prophylaxis in clinical terms) at 100%, meaning you won’t pay anything out of pocket for your visit & the insurance company covers the cost of your annual cleanings. This is one of the ways that insurance companies & your dentist encourage you to prevent dental problems. By seeing the dentist for a cleaning every six months, which usually includes a brief exam, we can catch problems before they become painful, costly or both!

At a typical dental clinic, teeth cleanings are the most common reason patients come in to the office. If your teeth are relatively health, you’ve avoided having a dental injury, & you haven’t chosen to have cosmetic dentistry, most of time your visits to our office will not involve a financial transaction on your part at all. That being said, we will bill your insurance for your cleaning, meaning each cleaning won’t cost you cash, but it will cost you one of your annually allotted teeth cleaning benefits from your dental plan.

In some very rare situations, your insurance company may request you pay a small out-of-pocket cost for your cleaning. However, this shouldn’t be a reason not to get your cleaning. The $10 copay you pay twice a year for your cleaning if you have this kind of insurance plan is small compared to the hundreds or thousands you might pay out of pocket if something goes wrong & you need a crown because you haven’t been going to the dentist!

We don’t want anything to stand between you & optimal dental health. That’s why we offer teeth cleaning appointments that fit your busy schedule. We strive to provide appointment times that don’t require you to take off work (or school). We’d much rather see you before or after work for your teeth cleaning than pull you away from your obligations in the middle of the day. If you don’t already have your next 6-month teeth cleaning appointment scheduled, call us today so we can arrange it!

Take advantage of your teeth cleaning benefits! They’re made available to you in order to keep both your smile & your wallet healthy!

If you have dental insurance, your insurance company provides you with certain dental benefits each year. In case you’re not very familiar with insurance vocabulary, you can think of an insurance benefit as a dental service that the insurance company pays all or most of the cost of. Most dental plans cover the most common preventive services at 100%, meaning the insurance company pays 100% of the cost & you pay nothing.  But you should know, if you don’t use these benefits each year, they’re gone forever!

Why does it matter whether you use your benefits each year? For one thing, these benefits are provided as a way to help keep you healthy. That’s why preventive & diagnostic services such as exams & x-rays are usually covered at 100% by the insurance company. Even your free cleanings are a great opportunity for the dental hygienist or the dentist to detect potential problems. Think of it as an incentive to get your teeth checked out by the dentist twice per year.

The other advantage of using up your preventive benefits each year is that it can save you money. The healthier you stay & the earlier problems can be uncovered, the less both you & the insurance company will have to pay for more complex care in the future. For example, a cavity that is caught when it’s relatively small & minor will just result in a filling. A big cavity that has gone undetected for a long time until it started causing problems might result in a crown instead, which is a longer, more complex, & more expensive procedure.

Another reason to use up your dental benefits is if you encounter the need for more than one relatively major dental procedure in a single year. If you’ve been told you need a crown, rather than put off the treatment, if you get it done right away you’ll hit your deductible, the minimum you have to pay out-of-pocket before the insurance company starts helping pay for the cost of your care. But say a few months later you end up needing a root canal on a different tooth. If both treatments fall in the same calendar year, you only pay your deductible once. But if the two treatments fall in two different calendar years, you’ll pay your deductible each time. You’ll save money by completing your dental treatment sooner rather than later & using up your dental benefits!

We know dental insurance (or any insurance for that matter) can be confusing. If you have questions about your coverage, we will do our best to answer them. Our staff is trained to make the most of your dental benefits.

As your dental clinic, it’s our responsibility to help guide you through your oral health care so it is as easy & affordable as possible. As a result, we’re dedicated to helping you make the most of your dental insurance, ensuring you get the care you need & you take advantage of every benefit available to you.

Did you know that your dental benefits don’t roll over from year to year? Once you reach the end of the calendar year, your annual dental benefits disappear for good, whether or not you’ve used them.

What do we mean by dental benefits? One of the best examples of a dental insurance benefit are the preventive care services that are usually covered between 80% to 100%, meaning the insurance company pays 80%-100% of the cost of the service . For example, most dental insurance plans give you two teeth cleaning visits each year covered at 100%, meaning you pay nothing out-of-pocket for your dental hygiene visit. Most insurance plans also fully cover at least one set of full mouth x-rays each year.

However, if you’ve visited the dentist for one teeth cleaning this year, that doesn’t mean you get three teeth cleanings next year! Instead, that free cleaning that you skipped goes away at the end of the year & you never get it back!

Another example of your insurance benefits is your annual maximum, meaning the maximum amount that your dental insurance company will pay toward your dental care each year. Annual maximums vary greatly, but say your plan’s maximum is $2,500. If you’ve only used $500 of that $2,500 by the end of the year, the remaining $2,000 disappears & you never get to use it. Essentially, you’re leaving money on the table!

So what should you do if the year is almost up & you still have some of your annual maximum left? Well, this is why the end of the year is a great time to start recommended treatment. First of all, if you haven’t had both your teeth cleanings this year, call us as soon as possible to schedule your second cleaning before the end of the year!

As another example, imagine we told you that you need a crown on one of your molars but you haven’t actually completed the treatment yet. If you continue to put off getting the crown until the beginning of next year, you’ll be throwing away your remaining annual maximum for this year & using up next year’s benefits early instead. That means if you need any other treatment during the course of next year, you will have already used up your annual maximum & will have to pay out-of-pocket for it. Using up this year’s insurance maximum could actually save you money next year by ensuring you don’t hit your maximum too early!

So if you have dental treatment recommendations from us that you haven’t completed yet, give us a call as soon as possible so we can schedule your visit before the end-of-year rush. We’d be happy to help you check to see if you’ve hit your annual maximum yet & help you make the most of the money you have remaining on your insurance plan.

What if we told you the more often you see your dentist, the less you’ll spend on dentistry? We know it sounds like a contradiction, but that is the power of preventive dentistry.

We recommend that you visit us at least twice a year for a teeth cleaning appointment, which also includes a basic exam. You’ll hear dental professionals refer to this kind of appointment as prophylaxis (prophy for short), which is a word that comes from a Greek term that means “guard”. The services we perform during your teeth cleaning & checkup are intended to guard against the spread & development of disease, particularly tooth decay & gum disease.

Think of your preventive dental care in terms of this metaphor: you’re at home & a bad rain storm is coming. What would you rather respond to, a weather report telling you that there is a flood warning, or three feet of water in your living room? Wouldn’t you want the early warning so you have time to place sandbags to keep the water out?

As a dental patient, which would you rather have, a dental hygienist gently removing plaque & tartar from your teeth, or the dentist telling you that your tooth is too far gone to be saved & has to be removed?

We say this not to scare you & not as a threat, but because we want you to think of preventive dentistry as an early warning system for your mouth. We’d rather let you know about the risks to your health & help you take preventive measures than be on the phone with the insurance company telling them about the damage.

A few dozens sandbags are a lot cheaper than replacing your belongings & repairing damage to your house. Preventive dentistry, like teeth cleanings, is much cheaper than restorative repair to fix decay, such as fillings, crowns, & bridges or gum disease treatments. If you have dental insurance, most of your annual preventive dental care is covered & won’t cost you any extra money. That’s like if your homeowner’s insurance offered you a load of sandbags for free twice a year, just in case there was a flood. If you knew there was a risk of flooding, why would your refuse the offer?

So if you want to avoid costly restorative dentistry or gum disease treatments in the future, be sure to come see us every six months for your preventive care & cleaning appointment. An hour of your time twice a year is well worth trying to repair the damage after a catastrophe!

When it comes to dental insurance, or insurance in general, many of us are quickly baffled. There are so many different types of plans & unfamiliar vocabulary that it often feels like trying to learn a new language. However, there is one important concept about your dental insurance that you should absolutely know, & it can save you money!

There are actually a few sweet spots on the calendar when it comes to getting dental treatments done, & one of them is the beginning of the year. Because your dental benefits don’t roll over from year to year, every New Year you’re granted with a fresh set of benefits. That means no matter how much dental work you had done the previous year, you have new benefits you can use right away this year.

If your dental insurance plan has a deductible (i.e. a total amount you must pay out-of-pocket before the insurance company starts covering your costs), getting treatments completed at the beginning of the year could mean reaching your deductible early. Once you’ve reached your deductible, any treatments you may need later in the year might be covered entirely by your insurance, meaning there will be no out-of-pocket cost for you. By contrast, if you started treatment at the end of the year before reaching your deductible & your follow-up appointments fell in the New Year, you’d be paying some out-of-pocket cost for all of it!

If your dental insurance plan has an out-of-pocket maximum, starting a treatment at the beginning of the year can help you reach that maximum sooner. Once your out-of-pocket maximum has been reached, that may mean that any follow-up appointments you have for your treatment, plus any other treatments or appointments, could be covered 100% by your dental insurance for the rest of year. Also, most dental plans cover your regular teeth cleanings at no cost to you (or a very small co-payment), often regardless of whether you’ve reached your deductible or out-of-pocket maximum. That means no matter what time of year it is, you’re entitled to teeth cleanings for free with your insurance.

Both of these examples demonstrate why the beginning of the year is a great time to get started on dental work that you may have been putting off. Plus, it may be a great way to get started on your new year’s resolution to be healthier!