You likely already know that regular dental cleanings and checkups are beneficial to your overall health. However, if your dentist is not in the network of your company dental insurance, it may not be worth the expense of purchasing your own individual dental insurance to only cover your annual cleanings and checkups with your dentist who you find most comfortable for your regular dental work.
It may also be important to know the valuable benefits to have dental insurance, either through your company insurance or if you need to purchase your own insurance plan independently for your family. You can start by understanding how dental insurance works overall. It is basically like your health insurance in having coverage of in-network and out-of-network dental care providers. This is something that you would need to check on carefully if you automatically sign up for your new employer’s dental insurance plan only to learn that your current dentist is outside the network. This would increase the amount of copay required at your annual appointments.
It is also important to know that dental insurance works quite differently than health insurance when it comes to expenses on your own. A rough estimate to the standard cleanings, X-rays, and exams that come with dental appointments may only come out to about $400 out of pocket. On the other hand annual dental insurance premiums could be as much as $600 if you have to purchase a dental insurance plan of your own.
Now, if you have a larger family with many more cleaning and checkup appointments to be covered throughout the year, the annual premiums purchased of your own dental insurance plan may be more beneficial. Even more so, if you have children who face potential dental risks when playing rough outside and issues like chipped teeth and other things coming up like orthodontics or other treatments that may be needed, it could definitely be a more beneficial expense for your family overall. It can be most helpful that dental insurance covers cleanings and checkups at 100%.
So, the determination of benefits of having dental insurance may come through the evaluation of how much dental care and overall dental work takes place throughout your household throughout the year. It could be more important to analyze whether you would need dental insurance for yourself or if you have many family members who would have a much greater amount of dental care or the potential of dental repairs needed.
