mrken30

My employer is providing HMO option for dental coverage this year. Fortunately for me I ask lot of questions and it appears that there is zero out of network coverage. I think is is bad they did not put this information in the benefits package and require employees to travel a lot.

Does anyone know if you can buy catastrophic / emergency dental insurance to top up existing insurance.

robin1234

Is catastrophic dental really needed? I was under the impression that such potentially expensive incidents, car crash where you lose teeth and smash your jaw for instance, come under medical (not dental) insurance.

When we retired, we chose to do without dental insurance. We pay cash for cleanings, checkups, periodontics exams etc, maybe $800 per year for the two of us. I had a root canal, maybe $3,000 total.

mrken30

I have never had to pay full cost of dental so not really sure how much the real cost of refitting a crown or similar would be. I was thinking maybe travel insurance would cover out of network when travelling.

SanDiegogirl

If it's an HMO policy then does that not mean a network confined to the particular HMO i.e Kaiser Permanente comes to mind. They have their own specific network and one cannot get treatment outside of this network.

If so, I'm not surprised that you can't get out of network coverage.

I've always found dental insurance pretty limited anyway - the most I've been covered for was $1,500 per annum. Cost of a couple of crowns and cleanings.

SanDiegogirl

Are you talking about travel insurance for overseas?

Most companies only cover you for about $500 emergency treatment.

tom169

I'd advise stashing some money aside each pay check and "self insuring" for it. Or rather you could just have a general emergency fund.

A catastrophic dental incident is a fraction of the price of a medical emergency.

mrken30

I've had Kaiser Dental previously and yes , I think I had about $500 emergency out of network coverage. I think I had to be 100 miles or more away from home. With Kaiser , you did have to pay out of pocket and then claim back the expenses when you got home.

This plan with the new employer covers $0 emergency dental treatment while away from home. This is information that I obtained through our outsourced benefits people. Quite often they have made mistakes, it took me 45 minutes to obtain this one piece of information, and HR knows even less. The HMO insurance is provided through Delta Dental.

My other option is a normal PPO place with $1500 limit. This does have out of network coverage. The HMO plan has no limit or deductibles.

tom169

As an aside to my previous post, if you have an HSA it can be used for dental expenses.

Boomhauer

I don't have dental insurance at all, and am self employed/attenting university. So can anyone adivice on how I get dental insurance? I am not sure the University provides it, but will check tomorrow.

mrken30

I already contribute to an HSA and am thinking about putting money into an LFSA.

tom169

Then you can use the HSA money on dental costs even if insurance isn't involved.

petitefrancaise

We have humana dental insurance. Doesn't seem to matter whether the dentist is in network or out of network, they pay out the same.

We get checkups/xrays/cleanings covered at no cost. Treatment seems to be 50% paid.