Dustin asked:
I need to get my wisdom teeth taken out, but don’t have any dental insurance at the moment.
I need to get my wisdom teeth taken out, but don’t have any dental insurance at the moment.
I’m unable to get it through my employer, so I need to find a cheap plan that would allow me to choose my own dentist.
Would I be able to cancel the plan after I received the treatment?
Any recommendations and specific cost amounts would be great!
In case it matters, I’m 22 and live in Southern California.
Tags: Dental Insurance, Dentist, Insurance, Southern California, Wisdom Teeth
short answer NONE.
Dental insurance you will buy for one year and will probably cost you as much as the surgery it’s self. And on top of that the insurance will not pay all the cost of the surgery.
An alternative to this is to go to a university that has an oral surgery department. The surgery will be done by a resident surgeon and they are very inexpensive.
If you cant get insurance from you employer then buying it may be a waste of time, that is yor going to pay a lot of money for it. Dental insurance has a lot of restrictions like wait period, deductables, and high premiums, and they have strict contracts for individuals bc they dont want you to just get it use and bail. So to answer your question you may be locked in long enough for them to regain their money and then some. I will give you an example of why it is a bad idea to purchase it on your own.
One is that they place a limit for the year usually 1000, to 2000. But how you use that limit is restricted. So will not be able to apply it all to one treatment. Let say you need a denture. The denture with out insurance will run $1000. Well if you just got insurance they will probably place you on a one year wait period, and all this time you pay your monethly premium, say $100 per month. After a year you will have paid $1200 to the insurance company, so your already in the red. Lets say you now decided to use it for your denture (assuming they dont decline it for a presexisting condition) they tell you we will only covr 50%. so you have to pay $500 and they pay 500. So now your in the hole 1700. But wait there is more the deducatable, which is $50. so now you paid $1750 and the insurace pays 450. So your in the hole $1750 and they make a profit.
If you employer covers it then it is worth it bc you would have paid only 550 for a $1000 denture.
This is insurance. There are also plans. Plans in my opinion are legal scams. The insurance lobby got congress to back them up with plans. Plans do not pay anything out, yet you pay them a premium every month. there is no third party payer with plans. So it sounds nice when they pitch a plan to you.. They claim no deducatable, no waiting periods, not limits etc etc etc,… sounds nice but they dont care if you get a 100 exams bc your the one that pays for it they never pay out a dime. So what you really have with a plan is just a coupon that your paying for every month.
The other bad things is you really dont have a choice of who you see with a plan, many doc that accept them schedule their patients one to two months into the future, hoping you dont show up bc they run at a loss if you do. Also you should be suspicious of docs that rely on plans to get patients, why are they looking to the plan for patients. Many of the bad clinics apply to plans bc they are having problems getting patients in. Also getting referrals is a big issue, because what you have is a coupon and if you do manage to find a specialist they only have to give you a 20% discount off their usual and customary fee, which means the doc sets the price and they can set it to whatever they want and you really did not save anything.
Your best bet if to fpay for it up front. Or find someone that accepts care credit and try to pay it off in a year. If you pay off your care credit right away you wont pay any interest.
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I understand your situation. I also at one time was waiting for my insurance to kick in to use when I was in pain, I research and found this great plan. I still use it when I max out my insurance. I would strongly encourage you to visit this great site: I signed up online over 5 years ago now and they have saved me thousands since. From root canals, xrays, cleanings, exams…etc. All services are included in this very affordable plan. Even cosmetic surgery and orthodontic treatment. They even had my benefits active in 2 hours and was able to use it the very same day. hope this helps.
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