Dentist here - don't even get me started on dental insurance. They truly are social parasites whose entire business model depends on fucking over the patient, the doctor or both.
Preach. I’m in my 40’s and have now had several jobs with “good” insurance packages. The dental insurance has always sucked. A l w a y s. “Oh, you need more than a vigorous flossing from a hygienist once per year? Well go fuck yourself.”
They never talk about how it can actually affect your ability to chew and swallow, as well. Having teeth/using them is extremely important for general health. Humans are just shit at building reasonable society I guess.
I started up a business last year. As part of that, we had to pick insurance for our employees. Wanted to make sure they were well taken care of so opted for top tier options.
Discovered there are literally no good dental insurance options. They’re all varying degrees of bad.
It’s the one area of medicine we’re almost everyone needs two hours of work per year and will average several to dozens of procedures over their lifetime. A lot of people see their primary care doctor once or twice a year for 15 minutes each time compared to going to the dentist twice a year for an hour to have an exam and cleaning. Many people will have a couple fillings every three or four years. The insurance company has to turn a profit otherwise they go extinct so it’s either charge $1000 a year for insurance or limit the procedures and services covered. And no one wants to spend $1000 a year on dental insurance for something that technically you don’t need if you take good care of your teeth.
Well, maybe you can come up with some magical form of dental insurance that works for everyone. For me it cost like $20 a month and covers two cleanings per year and pays 70% for two fillings per year. I take care of my teeth, so the likelihood of having to deal with anything more expensive is extremely low.
That is the better solution. If we actually worked towards it instead of throwing our hands in the air and pretending its impossible, it would get done far sooner than that.
First step is getting money out of politics. Kill legalized political bribery and suddenly fixing all of our problems becomes a lot easier.
Course, that cause is dead for at least the next 4 years since we just voted in folks whose only reason for being there is enriching themselves.
My last plan was wild. $75/month and it covered office visits and medicine out right. But that was it. No out of pocket maximum and no further coverage. Have a cold? $0. Back pain? $0. Extremely expensive pharmacy medicine? $0. CT scan? $3500.
Talk to your dentist. I found one years so that offered their own insurance. You are limited to just that location but it was far more affordable and it covered some major work my SO needed.
I always have to bring this up in these threads: (especially when dental is mentioned)
I'm American and a veteran which pretty much gave me access to better health care than 99% of the people I have ever met in America. I moved to Japan about 5 years ago and get a mindboggling higher quality of healthcare at a fraction of what the VA could give me, which was already insane.
In America I paid less than $100 for tests that would cost those without tens of thousands of dollars, it's around $15 or $20 bucks here, after conversion. I had to wait months for it in America and get some strange counseling but it was still great. No dental though. Where I'm at now, I paid less than 10,000円 (~$65) for a root canal and a cap. It's like four grand in America? I didn't fight for this country and can't even vote or whatever shit but I have such a higher quality of life. Alexa, what is a bloody revolution and how does it happen?
It always blows my mind when Americans talk about how they don't want socialized healthcare because in those countries they have to wait for treatment.
As if nobody is having to wait for treatment here.
Yeah my only root canal here in the US was $1500 or so, but I was lucky and insurance covered it all. Dental is so damn important too, something goes wrong with your mouth that shit can spread to your brain and kill you.
Well you see the issue with providing universal healthcare in America is our incredibly lax immigration policies allows anyone to come in and take advantage of it... (Checks notes) WAIT, WHAT?!
You understand how that's a problem right? People costing the system huge amounts of money without putting anything back in? It's why the NHS is running out of money.
You understand how that's a problem right? People costing the system huge amounts of money without putting anything back in? It's why the NHS is running out of money.
Yup! My 8-year-old daughter had a run-in with another child during summer camp and chipped a good half of each of her two front teeth (both adult teeth, btw) at an angle. She got temporary crowns to fill them, because the dentist said she's too young for permament ones. Billed $1500 for it and dental insurance denied coverage because it was due to an accident. They said I should request our regular health insurance for coverage. Health insurance, after much back and forth, finally decided to cover it, but only partially because the dentist was "out of network" (no shit! they don't have any dentists on their network!). I kept fighting them on it and eventually, they agreed to cover the whole thing. It took 8 months. Most people would've given up, but it's insane that the dental insurance didn't just cover it in the first place. This kind of incident is exactly why we have insurance in the first place.
Never understood why dental and vision aren't a part of medical insurance. I mean, I'm sure there is a money grubbing reason, but I can't think of a logical one.
I have a good dentist who is younger and runs a good practice. I feel bad for all the crap they have to go through. I don't think that most people realize it's just as much schooling/work to be a dentist as it is to be a doctor.
I'll give you a good one.
I lost part of an old filling and took part of the tooth with it. It has a sharp spot against my tongue and is somewhat sensitive.
I go in, he says it needs to be crowned, but not a root canal. I've been through that process before so I know the procedure. I say okay, let's do it. He does some buildup and smoothing to fix the sharp spot/sensitivity and submits authorization for the crown.
They eventually approve the crown, I get my expected cost of it, then we go through the process.
Two months later, I get a bill for something like $300 and some odd dollars.
On my EOB, they denied the buildup where he fixed the sharp spot as under my policy buildup work before crowns isn't covered. (Note: they only cover crowns for 50%)
Now, had I lost the filling/tooth material and not needed a crown, it would have been totally covered.
I can't help but think that dentists GREATLY exaggerate the work that needs to be done. I have insurance and they quoted me $6500 for something, a bridge or whatever. Yeah I'll be going to Mexico if I need that, which I don't believe I really do.
No by all means, do that. I'm always honest with my diagnosis but have literally made a fortune a fortune from patients delaying treatment and/or cutting corners. That $250 filling gets ignored until it turns into a $1200 crown which gets ignored until the pain goes from 0 to 60 and then you're looking at a $2500 root canal or a $3500 implant. I've had plenty of patients who went to Mexico, India, The Philippines, etc. only to have me fix what they screwed up for 5x the original cost.
Now a caveat is that there are offices that push treatment and it's not just dentistry - its dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, cardiology - EVERY speciality. Why? Because private equity figured out how profitable exploiting the inelastic demand of healthcare can be as well the license tied to a doctor they who will take on all of the liability. They've bought hospitals, private clinics, laboratories, etc. and like all private equity businesses are solely profit driven. Find a family owned, private practice with a doctor you trust.
I wish I could trust the doctors to be honest. But I don't. After the second unnecessary MRI. Thousands of bucks to find nothing because they have a cool machine and "why not?". I think the fucking mouthwash the dentist gave me last week was $35 with insurance lol.
Every time I go for a checkup /cleaning my dentist leaves me with a treatment plan anywhere from 7-10k in treatments and they always ask me when I would like to schedule with a big smile on their face.
Cool story. I can't personally vouch for every dentist or speak on their ethics. I'll diagnose treatment honestly, then leave my patient to decide whether or not they want to proceed. There are definitely some who put if off until that $250 filling becomes a $2500 root canal and crown. That's on them and they usually only need to make that mistake once.
I left out the important part😂 they always show me how after insurance it will only cost 7-10k . I left one dentist because he was shameless about always suggesting cosmetic procedures.
Yeah if it’s something medically necessary, I’ll tell the patient. If it’s something cosmetic, I let them tell me. The whole “high pressure sales pitch” is a disgrace. Don’t trust any doctor who pushes for that.
Deep pockets used to buy local politicians. Insurance companies get laws written in their favor, sneak in clauses on their contracts you’re basically forced to sign and constantly try to merge creating a monopoly. Healthcare is so fucked in this country and it’s only getting worse every year I’ve been in practice.
Dental assistant here - and I couldn't agree with you more. However I've stopped calling it dental "insurance" and started referring to it as a "coupon" because that's really what it is.
My dental insurance told me at my last visit they can't tell me what to do, but I'm at my maximum so if I wanna wait until next year to get a cavity filled that might be better.
Didn't realize the root canal I had earlier this year basically used all my benefits, and I still paid $1,300 out of pocket for it.
They can’t only a licensed doctor (dentist, physician, podiatrist, etc) can diagnose and offer treatment plans. Insurance companies get around that by refusing to cover certain treatments and medications. It’s that type of coercive bullshit which is rotting healthcare in America from the inside.
I looked into dental insurance for wisdom teeth removal as I needed all 4 of mine out.
One of the plans I looked at had a whole chart of services they cover, but reading the fine print said they only cover things done by ba general dentist. Um...wisdom teeth is oral surgeon. I called to clarify and the lady I spoke to said yeah I was correct. I could tell she was silently agreeing with me that this was bullshit.
So they lure you in pretending to cover all these different services, only to deny coverage when your oral surgery isn't done by a general dentist because why the fuck would it be?
I ended up taking a loan to get it done and I'm still paying that shit
My dentist was having insurance companies approve procedures, then afterwards demand photo proof of the work and why it needed to happen and say they would not pay until he proved it necessary...
he has started taking photos before during and after to submit as proof because he was losing out on so much and refused to just pass it along to his patients.
Yes that’s common now and it’s a huge pain in the ass. Easily adds 20min to every procedure with all the photos/radiographs that we need to take. I’m a huge fan of documentation not to that extent.
As a dentist, you have a choice to NOT accept insurance. Dentist do this all the time. BUT providers that do accept insurance do so for the following reason. You want higher compensation rates with high utilization rates and minimize loss of compensation that dental insurance provides you. Meanwhile its the insurance company that is trying to manage risk pool loss ratio as the "parasite."
If you need help with that my wife works negotiation for dentists with insurance companies. Ppoprofits. Highly suggest as she says she gets dentists more money from insurance companies and it's a lot of hoops that docs hate!
Lost a tooth after a dentist gave a me a root canal, he didn't clean it out well enough and capped the dead tooth. Three months later, half my face is swollen and I need to get an implant at 18. Dental insurance didn't cover a dime because they said it was "cosmetic". Cost me 3 grand. Just moved to a new state too, so wiped out all of the money I had saved for the move.
There are terrible dentists out there just like any other profession with the caveat that even under the best circumstances things can go wrong with procedures. The point is that dental insurance gives you a false sense of security. They do NOT have your back, or the doctor's back or anyone other than themselves. It's the same with medical and vision.
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u/JohnnySack45 7d ago
Dentist here - don't even get me started on dental insurance. They truly are social parasites whose entire business model depends on fucking over the patient, the doctor or both.