What Are Your Choices For Dental Insurance?
Dental Insurance is structured much like health insurance. Your choices for Dental Insurance are varied and it is important to understand your options before selecting a plan for you personal dental needs.
In the past, Dental Insurance was often included in the basic health insurance group plans. In recent years, this is not as common and Dental Insurance has become a separate entity from the health insurance plans. Many people have made the decision to forego Dental Insurance because of the increasing costs of other forms of insurance and they have made this decision at the risk of their dental health.
In the past, the most common form of Dental Insurance was a straight indemnity type of insurance. This is often called Traditional Dental Insurance today. Under this plan, a person paid a premium to the Insurance Company and if they needed any dental care, they would go to a dentist and have it done. The Insurance would usually have a deductible and after it was paid, the Insurance Company would pay a certain percentage of the remaining cost. This percentage was usually around 80%. The insured party would pay the remainder as a co-payment.
Most Insurance plans would base their payments on what was called a UCR scale. This meant usual, customary, and reasonable. It was a method to try to control the cost of dental care by establishing standards. Since the patient had to pay any amount over the UCR scale, they would be more likely to use dentists that adhered to it. Another method of determining the customary costs was to establish a Table of Allowances. This was simply a price list that told just what procedures the Insurance would pay for, and how much they would pay.
In the same manner as health insurance, Dental Insurance began to offer choices beyond the Traditional plans. These new forms were designed to try to further control the ever increasing costs. One such plan was the Dental HMO, or Health Maintenance Organization. Under a Dental HMO plan, a group of dentists was selected and paid a certain fee to provide dental services for the members of the plan. The Dental HMO were controversial because some people felt that the dentists would try to do as little work as possible since their fee was fixed. Supporters of the HMO's insisted that the dentists would be more likely to do all they could to maintain good dental health in the members to reduce the need for extra dental work later.
An alternative choice was the PPO plan. This is the Preferred Provider Organization type of insurance. Under this plan, a network of dentists was established. The members covered by the plan would select a dentist associated with the plan, but the dentist was paid directly for work actually performed. The advantage to the dentist was a steady supply of patients directed to him by the plan. The advantage to the patient was a set fee schedule that was covered by the insurance. A variation of the PPO was the EPO which is an Exclusive Provider Organization. This plan worked much like a PPO except the choices of dentists were much more limited and no payments would be made if the patient went out of the system for care. By: Barry Waxler Article Source: http://www.ArticleDashboard.com Get quotes on individual dental plans in California at UFCAmerica.com.
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