Family Dental Plans if There is More Than One of You

By Staff Writer at DiscountedDentalCard.com

Having to deal with multiple sets of teeth can be a real problem for a young family.  Six-month checkups, even for a family of three or four can add up to very expensive yearly dental care costs. What are the options available to a family?

A Family Membership In a Dental Plan Can Cut Dental Bills in Half

One option is to apply for a family membership in a dental plan.  A family dental plan will give each member of the family a discount of from ten to up to sixty percent on dental procedures such as cleaning, exams, x-rays, fillings, crowns, and other routine dental work.  Most lower cost family dental plans will not include expensive or so called elective procedures such as cosmetics, implants, oral surgery or braces in the schedule of discounts.  However, some higher priced plans will discount such procedures. 

When evaluating the dental care needs of the family each member of the family needs to determine what possible non-routine dental care may be in their future. If run-of-the-mill cleanings, fillings etc. are expected in the future then a lower priced plan may be the ticket to much lower overall dental bills. Some bare-bones family dental plans start at only $130 per year.  If braces, dental implants, dentures or other complicated dental requirements are needed, a much closer evaluation of what procedures are included in the discount schedule and what is not included is a must. Most of the time a family can find a dental plan that will provide a discount for all of their needs if a careful cost benefit analysis is completed on all dental plans available to them.  As with most purchases of this type "you pay for what you get".

Dental Plans are Not Insurance...Insurance Requires Family Members To Go Through Health Underwriting

Family dental plans are different from dental insurance.  Family dental insurance works like most heath insurance policies.  Group dental insurance policies generally do not require health applications and underwriting... non-group or so called "individual" family dental insurance usually does. What this means is all applicants are subject to an investigation of their health condition and history.  An agent fills out an application and it is submitted to the home office for evaluation. Even with only dental coverage often general health questions are asked.  If the home office underwriter decides that additional information is needed then requests for health records are sent to doctors, hospitals and/or clinics. As part of the application all applicants must sign a release of this information to the insurance company.

Once all health questionnaires and responses from doctors etc. are received by the home office underwriter all applicants will be accepted, rejected or accepted with a rating and/or exclusions. This means, depending on health conditions or health history, an applicant's premium can be increased, he or she can be denied coverage or be covered with the exception of pre-existing heath conditions.  If rating or exclusions happen one strategy that may work is to reject the family policy as applied for then re-apply for individual policies rather than a family policy.  The family member with the pre-existing health condition might be able to find a better policy with another carrier.

Standard Provisons for Family Insurance Policies

Once the policy is issued a waiting period of several months or even up to two years for some higher priced dental procedures will begin a countdown before coverage takes effect.  After coverage is effective all family members insured under the dental insurance policy will be subjected to an individual and family deducible.  So the first $750 to $1,000 in dental costs are not covered. When the somewhat higher family deductible is met then all other individual deductibles are considered met. Then a "coinsurance" of around 20% is applied meaning only 80% of the dental bills will be covered.  Sometime a stop loss applies so that once a certain out-of-pocket maximum in dental bills is met all additional are covered at 100%.  However, there also can be a maximum annual benefit that once exhausted no dental bills are covered. The insurance company will reimburse the dental office directly.

Family Dental Plans Avoid the Hassles of Insurance

Becoming a member of a good dental plan will avoid all the hassles of dental insurance described above.  Family dental plans do not have health underwriting, deductibles, coinsurance, waiting periods or annual caps.  Once you get your discounted dental cards in the mail. Each family member can have access to the discounts immediately with an approved, participating dentist on the members list.