buchanan

My son has been referred to an orthodontist in WA as he has a large over bite with his top teeth through thumb sucking. Has anyone any experience of seeing one in WA as regards cost are we better getting a private dental plan that will cover all 5 of us?

bcworld

Dental plans are generally not generous when it comes to orthodontics.

I have a reasonable extras policy which covers me for a maximum of $250 per year for orthodontics and $1500 for the lifetime of the policy. The limits may be higher for kids though - not sure. A lot of people here talk about spending several thousand dollars on orthodontics.

If your son needs the treatment now, also bear in mind the waiting periods associated with private medical insurance - you may have to wait 12 months before being able to make a claim.

Smartinis

Be warned, our sons orthodontics have cost us about $7000 and this is for pretty standard braces that a lot of children have. We have private health cover with full hospital and extras, but this will only cover about $2000 worth of the treatment. Get a couple of quotes, this expense over here catches a lot of people out, it did us, we hadn't budgeted for it at all.

TigerFeet

$7000....and my daughter has just finished the treatment...I just had to pay another $450 so they could write the dentist a letter and take more photos and xrays. It doesnt stop there, she will have to have wisdom teeth removed in a couple of years.

Nick11

My friends daughter had a massive overbite. It's cost her about $1500 as the brace wasn't a permanent one. I have just paid $6600 for a full set of braces and back plate and $1500 for an operation to pull down 2 submerged teeth and extract 2. I will get $2000 back from my health provider and about $1200 back on my tax.

kar-kier

My son is the opposite and has a bad under bite - been told we are looking at $2900 - they may be all he needs, but been told to prepare ourselves that it may go up to around the $6/7k mark!

Petals

My son had orthodontic work from the age of 9 until he left school and we own the dentist surgery. He had plates made and lost them and then pushers then other stuff, finally braces. If I had my time over I woulld have had a few teeth removed which would have saved us a lot of money and him a lot of discomfort and pain.

EvansCrew

Hi

We live in South Australia and my son has had to have braces top and bottom, total cost was $5,000, the Orthodontist suggested we pay this all in one tax year so that we could claim the tax back. (I think its any dental work over $3,000 in any tax year). He kindly let us spread the cost over 10 months. He said we should receive between $600 - $700 back in tax. I'm just about to put the Tax Return in and will let you know how I go? The Panoramic Dental Xrays needed I put through on Medicare and got about 85% of the cost back even though we are on a Recipricol Medicare Card (as we are on a 495 visa). Also the best private medical insurance I looked at had a maximum cap of only $600 for dental work. Hope this helps?

movingaway

Can anyone recommend a good health insurance just to cover dental/orthodontic work? I don't want to pay for hospital cover right not just for braces for 2 of my children I understand you can't claim for the first 12 months. Is there any policies that allow this?

Went for first consultation today and have been referred to a specialist orthodontist because my daughter has a complex case which will involve braces and surgery to make her lower jaw slightly smaller Has anyone else had any experience of treatment that has involved surgery - and of course the cost involved.

Thanks

Nick11

Anything that involves surgery will be costly. I couldn't believe I paid $1500 for a couple of teeth out and one pulled down!!!
It was $650 for half a days stay in hospital,$540 for the surgeon and a medicare gap of $375 for the anethistist.
We are on a 495 and only have extras. As soon as we get our 887(hopefully in a few weeks time) we're getting hospital cover!!!!!

movingaway

What sort of surgery is covered by medicare? Would I definitely have to pay for dental surgery in my daughter's case? We are on PR. If we took out hospital cover, would this help?

the4ofus

My daughter is wearing braces at the minute - at a cost of $5500 She wore a head brace at home only for about 4 months to make spaces (in the UK they were ready to extract 4 teeth) and has now had her permanent top brace for 5 weeks - the movement in her teeth already is amazing. She will also have bottom braces eventually. Her xrays were covered 100% by bulk billing.

You can claim anything over $1500 per year for medical extras - like othodontists, scripts etc. Wish we had know this before the end of the financial year and we would have paid it all off and only lost out on the one lot of $1500 - as it stands now next year we will be penalised on another $1500 - aw well, it's sone now.

HTH

Lynn xx

Sandra

After going through braces with 2 children - one pretty normal the other increasing jaw size on top and various other procedures I do sympathize with the original poster. We are over $14000 down between the two of them and only able to claim the taxable refund of 20% above an annual limit.

During this time I had top of the range medical and dental cover but was able to claim relatively little back on orthodontic treatment. I did check other policies but seriously found nothing that was reasonable to try and cover these costs. Basically Medical insurance is just that and the operators of these policies know how expensive dental treatment is and what they would be losing to attempt to cover people with children so any "insurance" is at a prohibitive cost or not available.

After paying all the money out I thought at least we had reached the end of the big work - but oh no. Hubby decided to have his teeth straightened, his argument was that if the kids can be worth that much so can he!!

He is very very happy so it is worth it, but we had to have a battle with the medical insurance to get some of the basic work covered as they said it was cosmetic and not the same as children!

This is actually a thread that comes up here very often and well worth a sticky note to stop the surprises for people. Dental treatment for orthodontics in Australia is/may be prohibitive and is well worth budgeting for to the tune of 5-6K per child.....and adults in my case.

moneypenny20

Blimey, some of you have very very expensive braces I thought my daughter's was bad at 5,200 bucks and that's top and bottom and back plate. Although the plate had to be removed with wire cutters the other day as the teeth it was holding moved and the plate moved causing a nasty infected sore. Thankfully everything else she needs to have done is being paid for by Medicare as it's all surgical including her wisdoms which were removed under general last week otherwise we would be looking at a bill for well over 10 grand.

I hate teeth.

movingaway

Hi Moneypenny, am interested to hear your daughter has had dental surgery. Was this all part of her orthodontic treatment and was it really all covered by medicare? Am worried when she has her first consultation with the specialist that we may need mega bucks to afford it. How do you what surgery is covered by medicare and what type of treatement would be charged?

Thanks