Individual Dental Insurance Coverage Explained

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Insurance companies offer individual dental insurance plans in every state.

It is easy to compare individual insurance plans to determine which plan is best for you.

Some plans have services from a dentist near you and some have next day benefits.

Here are some examples of dental insurance plans that may help you determine which plan is best for you.

Individual Dental Insurance – Indemnity

This is a dental insurance plan that you select the dentist.

This dental insurance plan will typically pay the dentist a traditional on the basis of a fee for service.

The employer or the client will pay the monthly premium to the insurance company, who then reimburses them for the services rendered.

The dental insurance company will usually pay 50% to 80% of the individual dental fees for the procedures that are covered.

The remaining 20% to 50% will then be paid by the patient. These types of dental plans frequently have a set of pre determined amount of deductible that may vary from one plan to another.

These types of dental plans may also limit the amount of services that are covered within any given year and pay them based on a various types of fee schedules.

Here are some of the usual features of these types of plans:

• - High deductibles prior to the coverage beginning.
• - Probationary periods on some procedures that may last as long as one year.
• - Annual dollar limit on dental benefits.
• - You chose the dentist.
• - The average monthly cost is a minimum of $15.
• - The companies that sell these types of plans are controlled by insurance departments of the state.

Preferred Provider Organizations

There is another type of dental insurance plan known as preferred provider organizations (PPO) that falls between a dental HMO and an indemnity plan and a dental HMO.

This type of plan permits a certain group of patients to receive their dental care from predefined dental insurance dentists.

The participating dental office will usually charge less than their typical fees to this particular group of patients which provides savings for the purchaser of the dental plan.

The group of dental providers will provide dental services at discounted rates and provide considerable savings for long as the patient stays in their network. Here are some of the usual features of these types of plans:

• Monthly premiums.
• Annual dollar cap.
• The patient must remain within the approved network of dentists or else the patient must pay more expensive co payments or deductibles.
• The average monthly cost is between: $20 to 25
• The dental insurance companies who sell these types plans are regulated by state insurance departments.