How to Find Affordable Dental Insurance

 

Parents of young children know how important dental insurance is to ensure their kids continue to have the best access to top-quality care. They also know how crucial it is that the insurance plan that covers their families be affordable, too.

Read on to learn more about finding affordable dental insurance for your family.

How to Select an Affordable and Usable Dental Insurance Plan

While it’s important to find an insurance policy that fits your budgetary needs, price is not the only consideration to keep in mind. It’s important to select a dental insurance plan that also helps you and your family achieve and maintain excellent dental health through its usability and its coverage of routine preventative treatment.

Out-of-Pocket Costs and Deductibles

For most dental insurance plans, you’ll be responsible for paying certain costs. The biggest cost, of course, is usually the premium, which is the amount you pay each month for the following month’s coverage. Insurance plans also have additional terms that can affect your total costs and access to care:

  • Deductible: Most policies provide an amount of money you’ll need to pay for care before the insurance plan covers the cost.
  • Co-pay: How much you will pay for each dental appointment.
  • Benefits cap: How much the insurance plan will pay for your care over a specific period of time.
  • Waiting period: How long you may have to wait before you can access specific procedures or services.

These insurance FAQs will help you learn more about the kinds of dental insurance that are available, as well as the costs and the benefits of each type.

Preventative Dental Services

Your dental plan should cover most commonly prescribed preventative dental services, which dentists recommend should be scheduled on a regular basis in order to help keep teeth strong and healthy, and identify potentially serious issues before they cause damage. A strong preventative care approach helps save money for both you and your insurer.

  • Routine teeth cleaning procedures
  • Regular examinations
  • Dental X-Rays

If the plan you are considering does not cover the costs for these routine preventative services adequately, then you should most probably keep shopping around for a plan that does.

Check the Network

Before you select dental insurance based on either the Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) or Dental Health Maintenance Organization (DHMO) models, first take a look at the provider’s network and participants to make sure you can find a covered dentist you’d be comfortable seeing in your area.

You’ll probably enjoy greater freedom to choose your dental care provider as well as specialists with a dental PPO plan. However, you’ll likely pay higher premiums, as well as shoulder higher out-of-pocket limits and possibly greater deductibles. On the other hand, a DMHO plan will likely carry lower premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket limits, but you will be required to see a dentist and specialists who are members of their provider network.

Medicaid

Your family may be eligible for Medicaid coverage. Medicaid is a government-sponsored and administered plan that provides coverage for medical and dental care for covered children. To learn more about Medicaid and find out whether your family may be eligible under its rules, visit the official Medicaid website.

Choose a Kool Smiles Partner Dentist

At Kool Smiles, we love to partner with dentists and orthodontists who enjoy working with children and their parents, and who share our mission of making top-quality dental services available to children everywhere, no matter what their economic circumstances or insurance status.

Part of that mission means working to help families find affordable dental insurance, because insurance coverage helps you provide your children with those services that help protect their dental health, strong teeth, and bright smiles for life. Whether you have insurance or not, though, don’t hesitate to take your child to see a dentist for regular care. Look for a Kool Smiles partner in your area and call today to make an appointment.

 

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Sources:

Healthline: https://www.healthline.com/health/preventative-dentistry#Overview1