Dental Plans

layitdown

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Hi everyone!


I'm wondering if anyone here is familiar with dental plans. It's not dental insurance, but it's basically a discount plan. My younger brother had a cavity that broke his tooth, and it's bothering him a lot now. He's a year and a half younger than me, so he's 20 right now. And well, I've always babied him for some reason, lol. Well he works fast food and is planning on going back to college soon, so he doesn't have health insurance or dental. I told him I'd help him out and would cover what I can. I just want him to get to a dentist and get it taken care of before he gets a bad infection, it already may be infected. i was looking online and saw quite a few dental plans, like dental select, ameriplan, aetna access, just to name a few. It's a monthly fee of between 10-20 dollars and you can save between 50-80 percent on dental procedures.

Here's a sample chart one of them has:
Procedure \tAverage Fee \tMember Fee \tYou Save!
Filling - 1 Surface (silver) \t$ 116.00 \t$ 43.00 \t$ 73.00
Child Cleaning \t$ 50.00 \t$ 30.00 \t$ 20.00
Adult Cleaning \t$ 73.00 \t$ 42.00 \t$ 31.00
Routine Checkup \t$ 37.00 \t$ 15.00 \t$ 22.00
Molar Root Canal \t$ 963.00 \t$ 380.00 \t$ 583.00
Crown - Porcelain \t$ 932.00 \t$ 482.00 \t$ 450.00


Has anyone used something like this. Is it worth it? I really want to be able to pay to get his tooth fixed. Thanks!
 

emrldsky

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Nuh uh...might give me away!
Well, I'd look at what the stipulations are, etc. and read all the fine print. If he has a broken tooth already, they might place a crown over it after doing a root canal, or remove the tooth. If you can afford the monthly fee and the member cost, (and there aren't any nasty fine-print rules), I don't see why not.

With insurance, I had to pay out of pocket $900 for a root canal and crown.

Good luck!
 

lsanders

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I work in a dental office and can tell you they're pretty useless. They'll probably force you to go a specific doctor and you do not want to go to a doctor that has to resort to participating in those plans. You would be better off seeing if there is a dental school around you, or a good dentist that participates in the CareCredit program.

Also, I wouldn't get a silver filling. They contain mercury, and they basically plug the hole (so there's not a tight seal). They expand and contract and can cause cracks in your teeth. You want to get a white, resin filling- they look better, no mercury, they bond with the natural tooth structure and expand/contract at the same rate your tooth structure does, so they won't cause cracks.
 

oscarsmommy

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I work in a dental office as well and I have found that Ameriplan is the best one. We recommend that one to everyone that asks and you odon't have to be assigned to a specific dentist
 
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