Dental Insurance Is Crappy

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Wow. A bite guard is the one thing my insurance never quibbled at (though in fairness I never had one that cost that much!).

My insurance doesn’t cover sedation or even nitrous oxide… even for things like tooth extractions or for a special-needs child. Not even when the cost is far less than the annual payout. I’ve paid out of pocket for these things on many occasions. They routinely deny Typo Knig’s periodontal treatment - first claiming he didn’t show enough problems to warrant it for the initial treatment… then later saying they had no evidence of prior periodontal treatment so the ongoing cleanings weren’t covered. Nice little scam - deny it then refuse followon because “it never happened”. Grrrr.

42

Mine cost ~$900 and wasn’t covered at all either. Usually, they cover 1/2 to 1/4 of unusual items (things beyond routine cleaning and checkups), so I wasn’t expecting much from them, but I expected a bit more than nothing.

43

Ouch!!

I have another crappy-weird-coverage tale. When I was 22, I had my wisdom teeth extracted. Due to timing, even though I was out of college I was still covered under my father’s dental insurance. So I paid the 280 dollars (250 for the extraction, 30 for the IV sedation).

They denied the extraction on some pretext.

BUT - they covered the sedation.

Subject to a 25 dollar deductible, and then 80% of the rest of the charge.

Yep, I got 4 dollars.

My parents should have appealed because this was so ridiculous, but they never did (hell, it wasn’t out of their pockets).

44

Have you considered a healthcare line of credit?

45

Yes, I do have a Care Credit account. Unfortunately to pay it off within 18 months with no interest would cost me about $280 a month. My total monthly savings allotment is $200 and I have a hard time some months getting all that transferred to savings. So, $280 would be quite a strain for a year and a half. I do have some savings, that I was hoping to buy a condo with in a couple of years with a 5% down payment, but it looks like I’ll have to put it into my teeth. I like my apartment I have now a lot, so a few more years here will be OK. I’d rather have good dental work.

I’ve talked with a lot of other people, and haven’t gotten glowing recommendations from any but two. The two who love their dentists have both agreed that the prices mine is quoting for crowns sounds about right.

I’m scared of shoddy dental work. I have confidence in my current dentist that I won’t have problems, and I researched the types of crowns because I suspect with a bruxism problem, I will be just as hard on crowns as on my natural enamel. The crowns I’ve been quoted are gold with porcelain fused over it. Sometimes I feel like with American dentistry, you do get what you pay for. I’m afraid of going to an inexpensive dentist and getting shoddy work. My dentist makes the crowns right in the office, too, so there’s no temporary stuff while they get sent out. Maybe that’s part of why they cost more.

I have heard from a few people who have gotten work done in Mexico that they are very happy with. But leaving for a week is not an option right now. If I decided on that, I do have the names of two dentists I could go to, one of them is the cousin of a co-worker who showed me her mouth - one side done on an “emergency” basis by a guy in Florida (crappy and causing problems) and the other side done by her cousin (gorgeous). She’s getting that side re-done by her cousin next year. But, again, going out of town is just not an option right now.

We’re trying to get my insurance coverage upped, effective December 1st. If we can get it to become effective for December, I’ll get the worst tooth done then, and the other two in January. I’m not in any pain that’s really remarkable right now, so it’s not too terribly urgent, and hopefully won’t be. I just get a little stab once in a while a couple times a month.

sigh

Oh, and the bruxism guard is also not covered at all by my insurance - the code isn’t even on the list. But I was quoted only $509 for it, so it sounds like I’m getting away cheap on that!

46

Could you just use a sports mouth guard instead? They’re under $20.

47

Get the proper guard - I tried to cheap out with over-the-counter sports guards, and there isn’t much of a comparison with a properly-fitted dental splint that’s been made from a mold of your own teeth.

One word of warning, though - your splint might not fit after you have a crown done on your upper teeth. I’m 50/50 for that - I had one big crown (it has never felt right, actually - too big, and they’ve had to grind half of it off to fit my bite - I wonder about that one) that caused me to get a new splint. The last crown I had done on the uppers fit just fine into my existing splint.

ETA: Re-considering, maybe try the over-the-counter one until your crowns are all in upstairs.

48

The sports guards are not appropriate for sleeping. They’re really uncomfortable when worn without taking in and out frequently over 8 hours or more of sleeping, because they’re bulkier than dental-fit bite guards. They push up into the gumline and protect the teeth from impacts very well, but don’t do a great job of protecting the teeth from each other for long periods. While I haven’t tried one, my dentist told me I would probably chew it to pieces in short order.

The one I have now is found in the oral care section at Target, boil for a minute and mold to the upper teeth for a custom fit. I showed it to my dentist, and he said it’s one of the better ones he’s seen from a store, doesn’t hate it, and that it’s fine to use for now. The bite plate is a fairly rigid plastic that already has imprints of my bottom teeth on it’s underside after a couple months of use. I have to get a new one every 6 months or so. But it’s only $25.

The difference is the dental-fit ones made by the dentist are hard dental material that “snap” into place, they are very low-profile and comfortable to close the mouth around for long periods, and they last for years rather than months.

Upon Preview: @ CW - yes, he told me I might need to re-mold the guard I have now or get a couple of new ones during the time it takes to do the work. We’ll do the permanent guard after everything’s done. Though, this guard doesn’t cover my furthest back molars, and those are the ones that need the crowns, so it might be OK for the duration.

49

Got my first crown “fitted” today. Going to the lab to be made now and wearing a temporary. I guess it went well. There was no pain. It feels weird, but I’ll wait until tomorrow to determine if it’s a problem, I think, since I’m sure there’s residual ouchyness from the root and gums being messed with, plus it’s not the right material and so feels weird. Dentist kept checking my bite and shaving bits, both sides strike at the same time, the capped molar just feels weird. Still no pain at all, and have eaten a bagel sandwich, so I think it will be fine.

My insurance company “upped” my coverage no problem effective December 1st, so I can get the $1,000 payout for 2010, and then continue the work for another $1,000 in January. They also told my employer that I can downgrade the insurance again at my employer’s discretion, so once I get the final check, I can apparently reduce my monthly expense again. I think it’s limited to once a year, though, so if I need more work done later in the same year I’m screwed, but it’s really unlikely once all the crowns are on.

I decided on the plain gold crowns rather than the gold fused to porcelain. I just think especially with the bruxism the porcelain will be too likely to crack and need to be replaced, and I just want crowns that will work for decades, hopefully for good. Who’s going to be looking in there at my molars, anyway? My dentist agreed, and said if you talk to any of the lab techs who make the teeth what they would use for their molars, their choice would be the plain gold, too.

On the side of weirdness, a funny thing happened. There’s a final impression the dentist needs to make toward the end of the procedure. It takes 4 minutes to set, with the dentist holding it in place with both thumbs. Well, 4 minutes of sitting completely still, unable to talk or move my mouth at all, with him hovering over me, also not talking and unable to move for 4 minutes, was all just too much for me to take. I started to giggle. I got a vision of myself biting down on both of his thumbs, zombie horror movie comedy style, and I just lost it. For three of the four minutes, I went from glggles to laughter to hyperventilating red-faced, not-breathing guffaws, and back to giggling. He said that’s never happened before. I made several other people laugh (I’ve been told mine’s contagious), and caused much curious peering around, wondering who the hell was so crazy. My dentist said it was refreshing. Laughter like that just doesn’t happen very often at the dentist.

50

My temporary crowns always hurt like a sonofabitch (and it doesn’t help when the dental people tell me they don’t hurt). My permanent crowns take a year to two years to really settle down. Between that and my hard-to-freezeness, I think my nerves in my mouth are abnormal.