Most people have no idea how dental insurance works. Here are the basics to help you understand how you can use it.
All dental insurances have four different categories. They include preventative, basic, major and orthodontics. Each category will assigned a percentage of coverage. For example a common insurance may cover 80% of basic and preventative services and 50% of major services. Preventative services included all cleaning an maintanance charges while basic includes fillings, extractions and root canals. Major services include crowns, bridge, partial dentures and sometimes implants. Other plans can cover 100% for preventative and basic services and up to 60% of major services.
Each plan will have a yearly maximum which is the dollar amount that your insurance will pay up to. For example, an average plan can cover up to $1500 in work every calendar year. Once you spend over that $1500 limit, the insurance will no longer cover any other work that year. Here at the Urban Dentist, we take great care to plan treatment with this limit in mind. Yearly limits can range from $500/year to unlimited. While most insurances follow the calendar year, some have a rolling calendar year that starts for example every September as is the case with college student plans.
Some people will have dual coverage for example from a spouse or an other employer. In these cases, major coverage is usually covered completely when you take 50% from one plan and 50% from the other. In these case, major work will be covered up to the plans limit.
With the year end coming, please make sure you take full advantage of your dental plans and book an appointment as soon as possible. If you do not use your dental plans, the funds do not carry over to the next year and the insurance company simply profits off all the unused benefits from your plan. Please give us a call at 604-278-1907 to book an appointment so we can use the plans to take optimal care of your dental health this calendar year.