Empirical evidence shows that most people hate going to the dentist. However, if you think they hate going to the dentist because they don’t like having dental work done, then you would be wrong. The reason why most people don’t like visiting the dentist is because they don’t like paying the bill they’re presented with when it’s finished!

Dental Insurance Plan
However, with a great dental insurance plan, the pain of paying for your dental treatment all but vanishes – and this shows through: most who have good or great dental plans say they don’t mind visiting the dentist. So, if you are one of the estimated 50% of Americans who is currently visiting a dentist without a dental plan in place, the time may well have come for you to give some serious reconsideration to this issue before all the teeth in your head rot.

Here, if the cost associated with a dental plan is the major reason why you are not considering taking out a dental insurance policy, then you may be surprised to learn that dental insurance plans can be purchased for as little as $100 per year.

So, if this interests you, there are 4 different types of dental insurance policies to chose from:

1. Indemnity: the most common type of dental insurance plan, like other types of insurance you normally have to pay monthly or yearly premiums for this type of dental insurance policy. However, read your policy carefully as there is usually a policy cap with this type of dental insurance, i.e. the policy will only cover you for dental work done up to a certain limit. On the other hand, indemnity dental insurance usually allows you to pick any dentist you want to visit – a major plus!

2. Dental health maintenance organization (DHMOs): – DHMOs work by paying dentists a flat rate to provide dental care to policyholders. Policyholders then pay an annual premium to visit that particular dentist a certain number of times per year. The major flaw with this type of dental insurance plan is that you don’t get to select which dentist to visit yourself.

3. Preferred provider organizations (PPOs): PPOs work on a network basis. Here, a group of dentists group together to form a network who provide discounted dental services to its insured members. With PPOs you do get a choice of dentist, however the dentist you want to visit has to be a member of the network in question – and you may be required to pay a surcharge.

4. Dental discount plans (DDPs): Including DDPs as dental insurance plans is a bit of a cheat as DDPs are not actually dental insurance – in the traditional way. With DDPs dentist agree to provide group members with discounted dental care. There are two major advantages with DDPs (1) you can pick your own dentist, provided they are a member of the DDP; and (2) there is no cap on the amount of work you get done. Both of these have helped to make DDPs the biggest growth in dental insurance plans in the modern-era.