Dental Insurance
Introduction
Shaving nicks and
toothaches hurt more than they should. While a nick will vanish in a
couple of days, toothache will take your pocket for a spin before it
goes away. Believe me, dental care is prohibitively expensive, but
still a part of necessary health care and very important.
Here comes dental insurance. Not
much in the past it was considered a big company perk, dental insurance
has today established itself as a must-have benefit. Even most small
companies offer dental insurance today to recruit and retain workers.
Dental coverage costs less than 10% of total medical coverage so its
affordable and preventive procedures, like cleanings, ensure the
overall health of employees, which means a decrease in sick time and
increase in productivity.
Various dental insurance plans
with numerous variations are available today. You should take proper
care and time to consider all options.
Most expensive plans:
Direct reimbursement plans
These plans are the most expensive
of the lot. They operate by paying for employee dental coverage from a
pool of money set aside by the company for this purpose.
The simplicity of this plan makes
it the most effective, the reimbursement is made by a simple formula
doing away with the complexity of co-payments, deductibles etc. Even
though ADA strongly recommends this plan, this kind of direct dental
care may not be affordable by smaller companies.
Least expensive plans:
Managed care plans
Similar to a medical HMO, managed
care dental plans need to pay for the treatment through regular
co-payments and choose forma pool of dentists to get treated. These
plans do various cost-control measures and can more affordable for
small businesses.
The co-payment amount varies
according to procedure. Preventive procedures are usually performed
without co-payment, however advanced procedures will bear higher
co-payments.
The choice lies with the
company and their financial managers, however great care is recommended
in choosing the plan.
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