What is a Dental Health Plan?

Dental Health Plan

A dental health plan, also called a discount plan, is going to be set up slightly different than traditional dental insurance. With traditional insurance, the insurance company pays part of the bill, and then the patient pays the remaining balance. In these cases, the patient is typically left paying anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent of the total bill. Dental insurance also commonly has limitations such as deductibles which must be met and yearly maximums.

Discount plans are set up slightly different than this. This option offer reduced prices for all of the common dentistry done at the general dentist’s office. With the discount plans, the patient pays the reduced fees to the dentist office, cutting the total bill down from 10 percent to 50 percent off.

There are advantages to plans like this over a traditional insurance policy. First, they cost much less to get started up and have a much lower monthly rate. Whereas dental insurance often starts at $30 per month and can run over $100 per month, discount plans start around $15 per month, and often can have an entire family set up for $25 per month. A second advantage of these plans is that they do not have deductibles or maximums like the traditional dental insurance plans. With discount plans, the patient simply pays the lower cost for every procedure performed no matter how much work needs to be done. One final advantage of discount plans is no waiting periods. Often times a traditional insurance policy will make a patient wait anywhere from 3 months to a year before any major work can be done. Most discount plans can be activated within a week, however, giving the patient the benefit of being able to use the plan much sooner.

Many major insurance companies are now offering dental health plans for public purchase. Some of the well known companies which offer these plans include Aetna, Cigna, Delta, and Careington. Each of the plans has differing benefits and differing savings off the common dentist procedures.

Dental health plans are easily purchased online through a myriad of websites. Each dental plan can have a number of different sales outlets from which a person can purchase them. A good rule of thumb is for a person to look at a number of different plans and compare the features of each plan in accordance with the needs of the individual. Most every person should be able to find a plan which will fit their needs as well as staying within their budget.