Dental Insurance Or A Discount Dental Plan? Which Is A Better Deal For You?
I have people all the time who contact me wanting dental insurance. Is that what they really want or is that the only way they know to communicate that they want to save money on dental work?
The last time my family was offered dental insurance we turned it down as being too expensive for the coverage given.
The plan offered to us was 56 dollars a month for our family and because my daughter was over 18 she was not covered. Okay, let me see: 56.00 times 12 months is 672.00 a year. The insurance had a yearly cap of 1,000.00 for the two of us so if something developed during the year we could use up to 1,000.00 and anything beyond that came out of our pocket at full retail cost.
If we use the 1,000.00 and pay 672.00 we come out ahead by 328.00 a year. if we don’t we flushed 672.00 away. Will they fix what’s wrong with my teeth now? “No, that’s a preexisting condition you’ll have to pay for that on your own.”
Will they cover any specialist work if my general dentist can’t fix the problem? “No the dental insurance does not cover specialty dentists.”
My thought at this point was, dental insurance it a rip-off because it doesn’t pay. Was the another alternative?
While at a trade show I met a lady who told me about Ameriplan’s® discount dental plan. The family plan was only 19.95 and everyone in the household was included. Even if they were not related. Had I have been single I could have bought an individual plan for 11.95 a month.
Well, the price was better but what did it cover?
“Since it was not insurance the way it worked was I would usually save from 25% to 80% off what the average cost was for most procedures in a general dentists office.” What about specialists? “Yes, I could go to a specialist and I would save 25% off their regular rate for most procedures.”
Well what about preexisting conditions on your discount plan, are they covered? “All ongoing problems qualify for the discounts.”
For me there were no comparisons. I not only signed up for the Ameriplan® but decided to get involved to market the plan.
I already had work that needed done in my mouth so my wife, kids and I all got dental work done and sure enough we saved money. During the first two years on the plan we saved over 3,000.00.
How did that work out? Well at 19.95 a month times 24 months we would have spent 478.80 on the plan cost as a member for the two years and saved 3,000.00 plus so after the cost of 478.80 we still kept 2,521.20 plus in our pockets. For us the Ameriplan® dental plan was a better deal than insurance.
In addition to the dental plan Ameriplan® gave us three other benefit plans at no charge since we bought the dental plan. They were a discount prescription plan, a discount on eyeglasses and exams and last of all a discount chiropractic plan.
We used all those discounts as well. I imagine we probably saved over a thousand dollars that first two years on the free benefits.
Well, now it’s 9 years later and we’ve saved thousands more on the benefits. I could go on and give you a chart comparing insurance and discount dental, but it seems simple to me.
Insurance has lots of limitations and gotcha’s. Ameriplan®’s discount dental plan does not. Why is that? Simply a different philosophy. With insurance the insurance company wants to restrict you from using their plan, so they do not have to pay.
With Ameriplan® they have a direct contract with their dentists and their dentists want you to come in and use the services. This is how they fill up their appointment book
Darryl Van Kirk has been self employed the majority of his life and working from home 9 of the last 10 years. His Ameriplan® dental web page is: http://www.affordablebenefitplan.com He also has a web site he
built on starting a home business it is http://www.start-a-work-at-home-business.com
Tags: ameriplan, dental insurance, dental plan, discount dental, discount dental plan, save on dental