Every person I have ever spoken to about dental insurance seems to agree it’s a rip-off. Not that I go around discussing dental insurance all of the time, but every year when the teachers sign up for their plans, there is a mumbling grumbling consensus that we are being fleeced. Many teachers opt not to purchase the insurance. I can certainly understand why not. You pay around $500 a year for what basically amounts to a discount. When my son had to get his wisdom teeth removed, I still had to pay well over a thousand dollars out of pocket. The only thing that is free on my plan is the check-up. Heaven help you if they actually find something that needs to be fixed!
I’ve now learned about discount dental plans. This is not dental insurance, which is a good thing, because it means there are no deductibles or co-pays. When I typed in my zip code and got the list of plans available in my area and then compared them (a process that took less than a minute), I saw that the costs listed for the procedures that people commonly have done looked remarkable similar to the copay for the procedures on my dental plan. There was one huge difference, though. The enrollment fee broke down to less than seven dollars a month! So, if the dental insurance basically gives you a discount (only they don’t call it that), why not pay the price for a discount dental plan instead of inflated insurance prices? Your teeth will definitely get more bang for the buck.
