You know you need some kind of dental coverage, but you've probably done the math and realized dental insurance is pretty much worthless.
Dental insurance: $35 x 12 mos = $420/yr
(To be fair, insurance premiums are all over the place depending on benefits, location, network, etc. We think this is a fairly typical cost for Arkansas.)
So what do you really get in return for that $420? Maybe you get your routine preventive care once or twice a year. And maybe you or one of your family members has some kind of other procedure done - filling, root canal, crown, extraction, etc. In any case, most of the time you're wasting your money 👇.
For the majority of adults, total copayments, coinsurance and premiums exceed the “market” value of their dental care.
Don't hate the messenger...we're just stating the facts according to the Health Policy Institute.
This article really spotlights the reasons we created Direct Dental Care. There is a ton of waste in our health care system and dental is no exception. A lot of that waste is created and promoted by third-parties that are financially incentivized to work against the best interest of the consumer.
It's Just Math
With Direct Dental Care you pay a fixed monthly subscription fee and in return you get your choice of 1 or 2 preventive visits per year at $0 copay. After that, it's a discounted fee schedule if and when you actually need it. It's really that simple.
So why are our benefits so much less expensive than dental insurance? Dunno, ask the insurance companies 😉. Obviously if we're only looking at the basics like monthly cost and routine preventive care, Direct Dental Care wins in a landslide all day long. But the typical response we get - "What if something major happens?" Good question - let's talk about it.
What exactly is "major" with dental insurance? Most dental insurance companies protect themselves with a really low annual limit of something like $1,000 to $1,500. Sorry, that's not major. What major means to an insurance company is something outside normal preventive care happens and falls somewhere in that small window below the annual limit and it appears that dental insurance may have actually been advantageous for that person. Sorry, we're calling bull&*$%...and so is everyone else.
Example:
Fillings are one of the most common procedures done outside of routine preventive care. The illustration to the right (or above if you're on mobile) shows a comparison of an individual on our Enhanced Plan vs Insurance.
✔ Routine preventive care
✔ One filling
✔ $115 saved
If you don't typically go for your preventive cleanings twice a year, you should take a look at our Basic Plan. In this scenario you would save an additional $90. Our Basic plan is only $12/mo for an individual and includes one preventive visit per year at a $0 copay, plus all the discounts on everything else.
The Big Picture
Our competitors will find scenarios to make insurance look like a better choice and that's fine. For example, if an individual is enrolled in our Enhanced Plan and gets a root canal and crown their first year, it’s possible that person could have been better off with insurance that year. Yes, it's possible. For that scenario, in that year, for that person, assuming no other utilization factors and depending on the plan, they may have been better off with insurance. But do we really look at life through such a small lens? Of course not.
Again, think about your own personal experiences. How do we stack up? We are practical, realistic. We don't use scare tactics to sell our products. We've taken real data and formulated what we think is a fair market price for our products that, in our opinion, offer a better benefit than most dental insurance products. We just removed the insurance middleman and all the massive overhead it takes to run a profitable insurance company, giving us the ability to offer a better product at a lower price.
Click here to learn more or schedule a chat if you have any questions. We love to talk about it!
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