October, I left my state job which had decent dental insurance. Dental office messages me CONSTANTLY. That’s a different issue. I’ve told them multiple times i do not have the same insurance ( and realistically, no dental at all ) and that id reach out whenever I feel the need to. I’m also pregnant so they keep pushing for me to come in because of how important dental health is especially during pregnancy. which i’m fully aware of and haven’t had any issues. The issue is
The discounts they’ve mentioned have ultimately been way cheaper than when I had insurance and was seeing them regularly…
What? I’ve spent a lot out of pocket and through my insurance this last year at this dentist. Now it’s just like 25% of what i’ve already paid when i don’t have insurance??
My dentist office is cheaper without having dental insurance?
byu/earth2aub6 inpersonalfinance
Posted by earth2aub6
11 Comments
If you are only seeing your dentist once or twice a year for routine cleanings then it is possible that it’s cheaper out of pocket. An issue may arise if you need almost any other kind of dental work done.
It’s possible they’re quoting costs associated with their in-house plans, which are sort of like paid subscriptions to get work done there.
It’s also possible what they quote you is cheaper because they get more money for higher quotes to insurance.
That’s weird. My insurance patients get the largest discounts (pre negotiated with insurance provider). Maybe they are especially hard up for patients? Sounds sketchy
My dental insurance has always been a rip-off on anything other than free six month cleanings. I switched to their in-house plan which turned out cheaper than paying for the employer’s offerings.
This isn’t uncommon. We’ve got a coworker who had this experience at a regular Dr. He paid 150 $ for his insurance Co pay for having a skin tag removed.
The second tag was cosmetic so uninsured. They charged him something like $25 for that one, no insurance.
Could be a combination of a few things.
Your dental insurance might not be good.
Or, your insurance is hard to work with from the dentist office’s end. They offer you a better “cash” rate to encourage you to get services and avoid some overhead by not having to communicate with insurance.
Dental insurance for the most part isn’t insurance, it’s just prepaying for service. Often times the dental office will have some sort of annual plan direct that’s competitive.
Being that much cheaper sounds a bit odd, I wouldn’t be surprised by slightly cheaper for them to just not have to deal with an insurance company. Or maybe some of the money went to the insurance company and not the office.
If they’re super pushy though, they may be owned by private equity and are optimizing for getting money by doing extra procedures, not for your health
I made the decision a couple years ago to drop our dental coverage and pay out of pocket. Our dentist we had been going to for a while stopped accepting our carrier (Guardian), and while we could have just paid and submitted a claim for reimbursement we tried another dentist in the area that would bill directly. Since we pretty much only do routine cleanings with very occasional other work, we were looking for a simple solution.
The new dentist we tried was universally disliked among the family, so long story short we went back, dropped Guardian, and just pay cash. For four people doing 2x cleanings a year it’s a fair bit cheaper than paying the premiums. Should there be a need for major work, we’ll weigh that as it comes. Ortho work already wasn’t covered by Guardian and we put two into and out of braces already, and it wasn’t that bad. They basically just spread the cost over a year and a half or something like that.
I was in a transition phase after being laid off and I went to dermatologist and doctor and my self pay/out of pocket costs were only ~$80 each, which is slightly more than my usual copay of $30. Usually I pay my copay and then see the bill of $250 they sent to my insurance. So in that 4 month transition I paid $160 out of pocket compared to the $350×4 months I would have paid for insurance + $30 copay x2 = $1460.
Anything with insurance requires more people to process and more overhead. Cash payors reduce overhead.
Self pay in healthcare is generally discounted since they don’t need to bill and chase insurance. For routine care I’m not surprised dental is less. Insurance is more important when you get into non routine care.