74 Million Americans Don't Have Dental Insurance—Dental Savings Plans Are the Low-Cost Alternative That's Making It Possible to Get Oral Care Anyway

A 2022 study in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry reviewed the 2019 data of 4.67 million Medicaid recipients and found that those who received at least five continuous years of preventative dental care were spending 43% less on dental care than those who’d received no preventative care at all. Those savings were in part because they were much less likely to need oral surgery or emergency care for severe pain caused by decay or oral disease.

Yet four out of ten Americans delay seeing the dentist, even when they have a toothache or other problem they know should be addressed. The reason? Dental care can be expensive and millions of Americans don’t have dental insurance. But there is some good news. More and more Americans are turning to dental savings plans as an alternative to or supplement for insurance. Here’s how they work and what discounts they provide plan members. 

How Do Dental Savings Plans Work?

When someone joins a dental savings plan, they pay an annual membership fee upfront to join — plans start as low as $80 but typically hover somewhere around $150 per year for an individual. Then, they can go to any participating dentist, show their membership card and they’ll be charged the special discounted rate available on the majority of procedures, every time they go.

To choose a plan, they can use a marketplace like DentalPlans.com to shop around and compare plans, similar to the way you’d compare insurance. Choosing the best fit comes down to finding a plan that is accepted by a dentist near you and that includes discounts for the procedures you need. 

Discounts Can Be Substantial

Plans vary but procedures are usually discounted by 10% to 60%. A routine checkup that might normally cost $73 per person, for example, can be reduced to as little as $19 per person, making it much easier to keep up with essential preventative care. Major work like full dentures or dental implants that might normally be prohibitively expensive can be discounted significantly.

Discounts Kick In Right Away

With insurance, coverage for certain procedures might not kick in for months or even a full year. That means a person with no insurance who finds out they need urgent work done like a root canal or tooth extraction won’t be able to use their benefits, even though they’re paying the premium until that waiting period is over.

While Insurance has waiting periods, Dental savings plans do not.  Individuals can join any time of year and the discounts kick in as soon as their membership is activated, a process that typically takes about 1-3 business days.

There Are No Annual Limits

Most dental insurance coverage caps out at $1,000-$2,000 and even the most generous plans cap out at $5,000. Once your dental care for the year hits that annual maximum, your insurance won’t pay for anything else—even if it’s a procedure your plan would normally cover.

This means even insured patients have to make tough decisions about whether to delay needed treatments until their maximum resets or skip it altogether in the case of a procedure that costs more than the annual maximum on its own.

With a dental savings plan, plan members don’t have that problem. No matter how much or what kind of work they need, they’ll always pay the discounted rate on virtually any procedure.

There Are No Exclusions Or Tricky Care Exceptions

Because a discount program isn’t the same as insurance, plan members don’t have to worry about being excluded from certain care on the basis of current health conditions. They also don’t have to go through the stress of determining whether a procedure is medically necessary or qualifies for coverage.

Better yet, many plans also include steep discounts on cosmetic work like veneers or teeth whitening that many insurers won’t cover at all. So long as the procedure is listed in the savings plan and you go to a participating dentist, you can get the dental care you need at the discounted rate provided in the plan.

While no two dental savings plans are the same and they don’t all include the same procedures or dentists, they’re extremely straightforward and it’s easy to understand what you’re getting before you sign up. On DentalPlans.com, for example, you can filter by the procedure as well as location or dentist. This makes it easy to find a program that includes the dental care you actually need.

To learn more visit DentalPlans.com

Discount Health Program consumer & provider surveys indicate average savings of 50%. Savings may vary by provider, location, and plan.

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.

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