DENTAL INSURANCE

Dental Insurance

When patients express a need for safe, comfortable dental care, we realize they want to know their dental work will be affordable, too. Dr. Colleran and our specially trained team work closely with you create a payment plan that fits your personal needs. We believe that financial concerns should never stand in the way of excellent dental treatment.

We accept a variety of insurance plans and will help determine how much coverage you can expect from your provider.

For your convenience, MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover and Care Credit are always welcome.

Your dental plan is a form of compensation provided by your employer and dental insurance is a benefit to help defray SOME of the cost of dental care and services. You can expect the carrier (insurance company) to reimburse you for a portion of our fee. That portion is determined by the contract between your employer and the insurance company. The higher the premium paid by your company, the more generous the reimbursement as part of your compensation.

Although we are not a party to the contractual arrangement with your insurance company and your employer, we do want to help you receive the maximum reimbursement to which you are entitled. As a convenience to you, we will help you process your insurance claims in order for you to receive maximum benefit. We will gladly provide dental x-rays and a written diagnostic report should your insurance company have any questions about the services provided.

At all times, you can be confident that we will always provide you with our best services without regard to the limitations imposed by your insurance coverage. To do otherwise would violate our contract with you --- to keep you in the best of oral helth — a contract we feel morally obliged to honor.

Differences in types of dental insurance plans

There are three types of dental insurance available in the US today.  They are indemnity, PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) and HMO or DMO (Health/Dental Maintenance Organization). Indemnity plans do not stipulate where you can go and are sometimes referred to as traditional benefit plans.  You can see any dentist you want, which includes our office, and receive the full benefits of the policy. Yearly maximums usually consist of $1000 to $2500, and interestingly enough when dental insurance was introduced in the late ‘60s the yearly maximum was also $1000.  

With a PPO, you have two choices as to your dental care, "in network" or "out of network." Our office is contracted with some PPOs, meaning we are in network, but call and check which ones are available at this time (they change their policies and benefits too frequently to attempt to keep things up to date here). If we are not a network office in your PPO at this time, we can still see us, the benefits will just be slightly lower due to the out of network services.

If you have a plan that is a HMO / DMO, we will be unable to bill your insurance and you will receive benefits only if you see a dentist on their very restrictive list of contracted clinics. We can still take care of all your dental needs, however no insurance will be able to be applied to your account.  Click here to learn how HMO / DMO plans may cost you MORE than if you had no "insurance" at all.  "Dental Insurance Secrets." http://www.dentalinsurancesecrets.com/

Insurance and Your Treatment Plan and Needs

When we determine your treatment plan we will be presenting the treatment that you need, not what your insurance feels should be done – they have never seen you or ever even looked in your mouth, how could they know what you need? In the end, your dental insurance company is part of your compensation from your employer and the insurance company is responsible to you and your employer. We do not like to compromise your treatment because of an insurance company’s policy on covering or not covering certain procedures.

With this in mind, we can only give educated guesses as to what the insurance company will pay in any given situation or the timing of it and we cannot make any guarantees or promises on behalf of your insurance company.

If you have any questions about dental insurance, feel free to ask at any time. We want to keep you as fully informed as we can concerning your benefits.