AmeriPlan Compared to Expensive Dental Insurance

Why Most People Hate their Expensive Dental Insurance,
and What a Lot of People Are Switching to Discount Dental Plans

Dental Insurance

Most people don’t realize it, but dental insurance is actually a dental discount plan with a small amount of insurance attached to it. The little bit of insurance makes the monthly premiums expensive.

Here’s how it works:

Dental Insurance Is Basically a Discount Dental Plan
with a Small Amount of Insurance Attached.

Dentists give big discounts to the dental insurance companies. The dental insurance companies then use your money to give you a “free” checkup and maybe a “free” cleaning once or twice a year. And they pocket the difference. Hmmmm… so much for “free.”

When you need any dental work done, you get the discounted rate (usually about 50% off the normal dental fees). The cheaper dental insurance plans may not pay anything toward fillings, extractions, root canals and crowns, etc. The customer pays $400 for an $800 root canal. So they think the dental insurance is paying the dentist the other $400. In actuality, when the patient pays the $400, the dentist is accepting the $400 as payment in full, thanks to his relationship with the dental insurance company.

Why Dentists Give Big Discounts to Insurance and Discount Dental Programs

Why does the dentist give such a big discount? It’s because the insurance company is sending him patients. To a dentist, it’s part of the cost of acquiring patients. And dental fees are high enough that a dentist can run his practice and make a good living on the discounted fees.

When you buy the high-end dental insurance, the insurance will pay toward the treatment as well as the “free” cleanings and exams. Of course they are using your money to pay the claims.

Since dental insurance has a maximum amount they will pay each year,
they rarely pay out more of your money than they take in from you.

In essence, you are paying the dental insurance company to pay the dentist for you. If you have a lot of dental work in a year, they may break even or even lose a little money on you in a given year.

The Most Important Part of a Dental Insurance Policy

Believe it or not, the most important part of a dental insurance policy is the built-in discount plan. Even on one of the more expensive dental insurance plans, the discount saves you more money
than the claim paid by the insurance company.

For instance, it is not uncommon for the insurance company to get a $400 discount
on an $800 root canal. The insurance may pay $100 or even $200 toward the root
canal, bringing your cost down to $200 or $300. The discount saves you more
money than the portion paid by the insurance company.

In our area (Southern California) a well-known dental PPO pays $225 toward a
root canal. Assuming the root canal is $800, you will get the discounted rate of
approximately $400, the dental insurance will pay $225, and you will pay $175.
The only problem is the insurance costs $126 a month for a family, and you have
a 6-month waiting period before you can use it. During that 6 months you will be
paying $756 in premiums, and they will pay out $175 for you.

The problem is, you only need a few root canals, if any, during your entire lifetime, but you pay the premiums every month. And when you do get the root canal, the insurance company is only paying some of your money - the money you paid them in premiums every month.

On top of that, usually have a waiting period to assure them that they collect enough in premiums to cover the payout, before you are eligible for root canal coverage.

So you see, in most cases, dental insurance is only paying your claims with your money - the money they’ve already collected from you - when they pay a claim.

There is no catastrophic coverage, as in health insurance claims. There are two reasons for this:

1.A one-week hospital stay can easily cost $50,000 or more. Rarely does a dental patient need more than $5-10,000 in dental work in a year.

2.Even if a patient does have $5,000 in dental bills, the dental insurance normally limits the payout to $1,000 a year, so the patient has to pay everything over $5,000.

What If You Could Get the Discount Portion of a Dental Plan
Without Paying for the Insurance?

The good news is that you can. The most important of dental insurance policy is the least expensive to buy. It’s called a Discount Dental Program. Here’s how it works…

You pay $15-$20 a month for a plan that gets you the big discounts the dental insurance companies get. When you go to the dentist, you pay the discounted fees. There is no insurance involved. Discount dental programs are not insurance.

What You Need to Know About Dental Insurance

Why Most People Hate their Expensive Dental Insurance, and What a Lot of People Are Switching to Discount Dental Plans