 Personal Finance PowerPoint Presentation, Dental Insurance and Teeth Whitening, prepare to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. Insurance is part of our long term risk mitigation strategy where we use the adage of measure twice cut once putting a formal plan in place, looking something like setting our goals, developing a plan to reach them, putting the plan in action and then reviewing the results, repeating the process periodically. Most of this information can be found at Investopedia. Does dental insurance cover teeth whitening? This is by Sierra Larkin. You can take a look at it online, take a look at the references, resources, continue your research from there. We're looking at the dental insurance and prior presentations. We've been looking at insurance in general, moving to the medical insurance, noting that medical insurance is a bit more complex due to the medical field being complex as well as the laws and regulations related to it. We're looking now at dental insurance, which has some similar characteristics to the medical insurance but is a little bit different than what we can think about as the classical kind of insurance where we're often tied to safeguard against a big kind of event that could be happening, such as liability insurance, a lawsuit, property insurance, the property burning down or something like that, life insurance, a premature death or something like that. When we get into the dental stuff, oftentimes we might be looking more at the cost of the normal routine kind of maintenance type of stuff and what are going to be covered and what's not going to be covered from that perspective. So we've talked more about that in prior presentations. Now we're specifically just looking at the teeth whitening, which is something that in the past you might have thought as not a normal kind of thing, but at these days it seems like teeth whitening is quite a common and routine type of thing. So you would think it'd be possibly more going into something that might be covered by something like a dental insurance, but it's still, I believe, under the field of cosmetic. So that's where the issue will be with the teeth whitening. So does dental insurance cover teeth whitening? Approximately 50% of Americans with private insurance have dental coverage, but it generally does not cover any sort of cosmetic procedures, including the teeth whitening. So dental insurance has a typical annual maximum amounting to a median of 1,500. So notice the rationale here. They're basically saying that it's going to be in the cosmetic realm, which kind of makes sense because obviously if the teeth whitening isn't doing anything to structure the teeth so they're going to last longer, you would think it would be a cosmetic type of thing. Although, again, just in terms of how many people or how common is teeth whitening, it's becoming to the fact that it's kind of more of a common type of procedure. So you would think from that perspective that it might be something that would be kind of routine kind of stuff. Some of the other stuff that goes into the cosmetic is a little bit interesting to me as well because obviously if you're talking about something like there's a divot or something, but it's not a cavity, is it cosmetic or not to be doing something? You could think there would be some preventative stuff possibly in there. Sometimes the teeth whitening and the braces and stuff like that might be, you can consider, if you didn't do that, maybe your teeth would get more out of lines, you would think that that might be something that wouldn't be completely cosmetic, although it has a cosmetic component to it. But that's where the categorization lies. So we've got the median of the 1,500. So that's the annual amount on the medium, kind of like an average, but that middle number that the insurance company might actually pay out. So we don't have the out-of-pocket maximums as we do with the normal insurance. We've got that top dollar amount that the insurance company will pay. Teeth whitening and other kind of cosmetic stuff can be expensive and possibly not covered at all. It covers procedures strictly related to health and wellness and it has a three-tier structure known as 180-50. What does dental insurance typically cover then? If it's not going to cover my teeth whitening, what do I get out of this thing? So it's got the preventative care such as annual cleanings, x-rays, and sealants are covered fully. Basic procedures such as fillings, extracts, and periodontal treatment for gum disease are covered 80%. Major procedures, crowns, bridges, inlays, and dentures are covered at the 50%. So we want to keep those categorizations known. You've got the basic procedures. You've got the preventative stuff, the major, and then the cosmetic stuff, which oftentimes isn't covered, which is oftentimes the stuff that you might be saying, I want to do some teeth whitening or something like that. So depending on your plan, root canals can fall into either the basic or major category. Most plans focus on preventative and basic care and not all procedures are covered. Dental insurance does not cover cosmetic procedures. So most dental insurance policies do not cover any cost for cosmetic procedures such as teeth whitening, tooth shaping, veneers, or gum countering. So again, I would think that some of these, like I say, the teeth whitening, although it doesn't make your teeth last longer, possibly, it's kind of becoming more of a routine thing. It seems to me, depending on where you're at, so you'd think it would be something that would be nice if it would come, but the tooth shaping, unless you're shaping it in some weird kind of angle, if it's a normal tooth shaping thing, then you would think that maybe that would be something that would be kind of preventative because if your tooth isn't shaped the right way, then wouldn't that, that could cause more out of shapeness or more movement by the teeth, I would think, and the veneers and stuff like any case. So because these procedures are intended to simply improve the look of your teeth, they are not considered medically necessary and must be paid for entirely by the patient. So the insurance not kicking in in that case. So what constitutes cosmetic dentistry? Cosmetic dentistry includes procedures that exist for the main purpose of improving the appearance of the patient's teeth and smile. So it's just the appearance type of stuff. Whitening treatments, veneers, bonding, and straightening procedures, such as Invisalign are included in these groups. These procedures, while widely known and quite popular, tend not to be covered by insurance and require patients to pay the entire cost. So what's the bottom line? According to the Consumer Guide of Dentistry, an in-office teeth whitening costs on average $650 compared with $400 for take-home trays and under $100 for over-the-counter bleaches trays or strips. The price increases or decreases depending on location and office pricing. As insurance is not involved, there isn't a usual and customary fee, which is why the pricing varies from office to office. So the insurance kind of standardizes things to some degree because insurance basically has their set plans as they come up with the whole insurance contracts and whatnot. And if you don't have that, then it's more of a market-based thing, which could be good or bad because then you would think that you could shop around for people that are competing on quality and price that aren't being subject to the insurance that kind of distorts that whole dynamic. So because of the high price for cosmetic procedures, patients must research other payment options while many cosmetic dental or orthodontic offices are familiar with offering their patient different payment plans. Patients can also opt to charge their procedures to zero interest or low interest healthcare credit cards.