Here are answers to some commonly asked question about dental insurance coverage.
What is dental insurance?
Dental insurance is a type of medical insurance that specifically addresses the coverage for some portions of expenses incurred for an insured’s dental needs. There are a number of individual, family, and group dental insurance plans available in the country.
Why should I have a dental insurance policy?
Merely brushing and flossing your teeth twice a day may not be adequate to ensure your dental health. At times, a dentist’s intervention is required, be it in the form of fitting braces or implants or pulling out an infected tooth. Given the specialization that is currently seen in dentistry, most of these dentistry services will require considerable expenditure. When there are serious dental issues involved, the costs can even become prohibitive.
Dental insurance gives you a way of covering at least a significant portion of your routine and specific dental care visits.
What types of dental plans are available?
There are currently three kinds of dental insurance policies available in the country:
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Indemnity dental insurance plan
Under the provisions of this plan, the insurance company pays the consulting dentist or dental surgeon a predetermined portion of the total costs incurred on your treatment, while you have to pay the rest. The approval of payment will depend on the nature of the procedure, age of the policy, prior claims, and previously stated annual limitations. - Dental health maintenance and organization
Also known as the DHMO plan, the dentist enters into a contract with the insurance company so that services may be subsidized for that dentist’s clients under this kind of a dental insurance plan. However, concessional fees would be subject to limitations on the kind of procedure involved. - Participating provider network
This is an organization that is governed entirely by a collective of medical practitioners, health care facilities, nursing providers and hospitals, whereby the group as a whole enters into a contractual agreement with the insurance company or with a third-party administrator in order to cover a part of the fees incurred by their respective patients.