Receiving dental care is good work and can be pricey, but if you are familiar with ways to save on dental care, there is no reason to why you cannot cut those costs for those pearly whites. Rad on and discover some ways to cut down on those dentist costs by giving your beautiful teeth the brilliant care they deserve.
Dental Coverage
Reports from 2012 state over 40 percent of Americans lack dental coverage. However, as stated by the Affordable Care act, all single and small group market plans cover pediatric oral health services, apart from adult oral health. If you do not have dental coverage, many plans can cover up to $1,000 per year. Read on and discover the following seven tips, which will definitely help you save on dental care.
Committing to Preventative Care
If you do not have dental coverage, you can surely save some money paying from your pocket for things like cleaning, etc. You should still floss and brush carefully. The first of ways how you can save on dental care is by committing to brush and floss your teeth, and consuming a healthy diet.
Enquire About Discounts
Many dentists provide services to patients with discounts of financial needs for a full upfront payment. If you have several children in need of braces, you can negotiate with your orthodontist for any possible discounts for several patients.
Look to Financing
Some dentists provide no, or low interest financing plans. Regardless if there is any interest, you still need to ensure you can truthfully afford the payment. Any missed payments will result in a higher interest rate.
Obtain a Written Treatment Plan
With dental care, it is not on the same level of transparency, as you would usually see the costs listed on the menu. You will need to ask your dentist for a written treatment plan that has the costs listed. This is so you know what to expect and you can even negotiate the costs with your orthodontist or dentist in order to see if there are any cheaper options. Make sure you take the chance; this is another way to save on dental care. Once you investigate further with the costs, you will see that orthodontist provide several different costs for the different kinds of braces. The most expensive option is having the kind that hide behind your teeth, ceramic and invisalign braces closely follow behind. You can certainly save on dental care if you choose to stick to the traditional metal brackets. You will also notice materials for fillings and crowns have their own costs, so be sure to check these all out so you can save on dental care.
Visit a Dental School
If you are situated close to a dental school, you should find out whether it offers inexpensive or free cleanings to the public. This is another way to save on dental care and gives you high quality dental work at the same time. This is because the dentists who carry out the work are licensed. However, this process may take several visits and a couple of hours because students will take their time whilst carefully checking the entire mouth.
Use Flexible Spending Dollars
If your manger provides a flexible spending account, you can fund this using pretax dollar to pay for any out of pocket medical costs, such as dental work. However if you do this, you must predict the costs a year before so you do not overfund your account and any unused money is not lost. You will definitely benefit from treatment plans if you are a patient with FSAs.
Time Elective Procedures
Many dental plans max out $1,000, with FSAs maxing out $2,500 annually. For expensive dental processes that involve several steps, you can space out the steps over many months in order to max out the FSA dollars and the dental coverage.
Strategies
Two strategies that dentists do not recommend are:
- Dental tourism
- Groupon vouchers
If you choose to travel overseas, you can definitely save money on expensive procedures, such as implants. However, there are additional risks as well as extra costs for travelling. The complications that are involved with having surgery abroad are you may face a problem whilst you are there or you could get worse as soon as you are back. The majority of countries do have professional dentists, but there may not be much choice in court if things do go wrong.
Many coupon websites such as Groupon have been contentious in dental and medical circles due to ethical concerns around splitting the fee between the dentist and the company. If you shift from dentist to dentist based on who is providing the Groupon to new patients, you will not get the same constant care, as every new dentist will be new to both you and your teeth. Another concern is that the provider offering the bargain basement may just be cutting corners.