I'm weighing whether to get dental insurance, but my dentist doesn't take insurance (because he is that good). So if I did a plan where you can get some money back for dentists not in their "network", the math doesn't work out for it to be worth it, even with an upcoming crown.
Look at dentalplans.com - it shows dental discount plans. He may take one of those.
Edited for more info...
The discount plans aren't insurance. A big reason some dentists don't take insurance is they have to hire someone to process all of that paperwork. With a discount plan the dentist just signs up to allow fixed prices for certain things. For example - they may make a crown $700 (no idea of pricing since it's been a while since I had one of those discount plans) where it may be $1400 normal price. The dentist gets more patients in, so more money for him, and doesn't need to deal with any insurance at all.
My dentist is truly way better than most in our area, and because of that, he doesn't have to deal with insurance, and is fully booked with patients (although he is getting pretty old, so I don't know who I'll eventually need to switch to). I had a really bad experience with a bad dentist about 20 years ago (one on a dental insurance plan). He over-drilled a tooth that eventually rotted and had to be pulled. I suspected there might be a problem with the guy when I saw that he was living in Manhattan, yet had a dental practice way up in Dutchess County (I would be willing to bet he was running away from either horrible reviews in the city, or outright loss of license there).
The last Dental plan I had cut the price of crowns in half. The dentist I used then just found more work to do in my mouth. I dropped the insurance and changed dentist. The dentist I have now hardly ever does anything but clean my teeth. I broke this tooth on some hard candy!
My teeth are getting brittle with age :) An upcoming crown will be the second in less than two years, on a tooth that had a root canal three years ago. (I think they messed up when they did it, because it shouldn't have a huge cavity now)
Let me see, Root Canal=1000.00 bucks and and now a crown on the same tooth is another 1300.00 bucks. That is 2300.00 on one tooth. I have had 3 RCs, one bridge and 7 crowns in the last 30 years. I have more money in my mouth than I have in my bank account!
I'm weighing whether to get dental insurance, but my dentist doesn't take insurance (because he is that good). So if I did a plan where you can get some money back for dentists not in their "network", the math doesn't work out for it to be worth it, even with an upcoming crown.
Look at dentalplans.com - it shows dental discount plans. He may take one of those.
Edited for more info...
The discount plans aren't insurance. A big reason some dentists don't take insurance is they have to hire someone to process all of that paperwork. With a discount plan the dentist just signs up to allow fixed prices for certain things. For example - they may make a crown $700 (no idea of pricing since it's been a while since I had one of those discount plans) where it may be $1400 normal price. The dentist gets more patients in, so more money for him, and doesn't need to deal with any insurance at all.
My dentist is truly way better than most in our area, and because of that, he doesn't have to deal with insurance, and is fully booked with patients (although he is getting pretty old, so I don't know who I'll eventually need to switch to). I had a really bad experience with a bad dentist about 20 years ago (one on a dental insurance plan). He over-drilled a tooth that eventually rotted and had to be pulled. I suspected there might be a problem with the guy when I saw that he was living in Manhattan, yet had a dental practice way up in Dutchess County (I would be willing to bet he was running away from either horrible reviews in the city, or outright loss of license there).
Yep - YMMV.
The last Dental plan I had cut the price of crowns in half. The dentist I used then just found more work to do in my mouth. I dropped the insurance and changed dentist. The dentist I have now hardly ever does anything but clean my teeth. I broke this tooth on some hard candy!
My teeth are getting brittle with age :) An upcoming crown will be the second in less than two years, on a tooth that had a root canal three years ago. (I think they messed up when they did it, because it shouldn't have a huge cavity now)
Let me see, Root Canal=1000.00 bucks and and now a crown on the same tooth is another 1300.00 bucks. That is 2300.00 on one tooth. I have had 3 RCs, one bridge and 7 crowns in the last 30 years. I have more money in my mouth than I have in my bank account!
It is pretty ridiculous what they are charging these days!