by Hope
I think almost every blogger here on BAD has had some sort of dental emergency and got caught without insurance or some help to cover it. So I thought I’d weigh in on what we do. Full disclosure, the twins do have full dental coverage and I have utilized that quite a bit, especially when they first moved in since they had never been to a dentist and had to learn more about personal hygiene. But we are caught up now, and are mostly in maintenance mode.
For several years, I carried a stand alone dental policy for me and the littles. It was $75 per month, covered 100% of basic maintenance except fluoride and gave us about a 20% discount on other services. We have been blessed with good dental health and as I weighed the cost of the insurance against what I was spending, well, it just didn’t make sense. So the next year, I signed up for my dentists own in office plan which for about $600 for the 3 of us, all the basic maintenance including sealants and fluoride were covered.
Then last year, I know, bad mommy, I decided to forego dental anything. We didn’t go to the dentist at all. Again, bad mommy moment but forking over that money is the midst of debt pay off, well, I just couldn’t stomach it for what we needed.
Now we are here, and I think a year without at least a check up is long enough SO we’ve decided to visit the local community college dental hygiene school. For all of us to go, get thorough exams by the students (under faculty observation,) get fluoride treatments, sealants as needed, xrays, etc….it’s going to cost me a whopping $65! I am so excited about this. And they are just 15 minutes from my house.
I set it up several months in advance so we can all go at once. It will be several hours for the appointment as it is a teaching facility, but compare to the $1000+ , then $600+ and now to $65 for what we’ve been getting the last four years, I am super excited. Obviously, if issues are found, I will have to revisit our previous dentist, but since we just recently had ortho appts and they found no cavities, I’m feeling pretty confident that it’s just the $65 this time around.
Anyways, just wanted to share my dental win! Appointment is still several weeks away, but I just received their brochure and confirmation card in the mail this week so thought it was a good time to share.
For those who chimed in on my braces post, we’ve decided to hold off on braces. All the kids know the end game of this debt pay off journey and know that adding the braces payment to that could really set us back a bit. I did let each of the twins choose independently on how important it was for them, with weigh in from me, and I think we’ve reached a good compromise on all sides. We’ll revisit my daughter’s in the next year, hopefully with some help from her dad, and let her decide with some parental input.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Wow! What a great deal on dental. I went to the ortho from the time I was 9 until I was 20. It cost my parents thousands of dollars and I am extremely grateful know that I’m older and can understand that it must have been difficult to decide “do we get the house resided or get braces for our child?” to the point that 5 years later I still wear my retainers when I go to bed (most nights) so my teeth don’t shift. I’m not looking forward to the day when someone might tell me my child will need braces!
I know, right! Talk about ticket shock with regards to braces, seems like there should be some more reasonable priced options after all these years. But I’m grateful that we are not in a NEED place in regards to those at this point. And I’m glad you still wear your retainer, as I now face this with my own children, I can see that as a good sign of respect for what your parents must have sacrificed to give you those pretty teeth. 🙂
Great win for all of you! Dental health is so important as it can affect your overall health.
Very true. I did feel bad about the skipped year, but felt since we had just had sealants put on and cleanings, xrays we would be okay.
When I worked at a University the only 100% covered dental plan only allowed you to go to the dental school.
My experience in my 6 or so visits was that they were ALWAYS finding things to do in my mouth. ‘Precavities’…evidence of grinding…
when I switched employers and got a new dentist I have had no issues and have been told that I have some of the best teeth they have seen (not sure how else to say that, I lucked out with good teeth, plus I take care of them).
So, just be wary of students encouraging work that may not be necessary in order to practice. (To be clear, I don’t think it is a grand conspiracy, but my coworkers and I noticed a pattern of the suggestion of action vs. remediation.)
Yes, the littles and I have been blessed with good genes as far as our teeth go which I am beyond grateful for. The teens have a combination of bad habits from lack of education as children and being teenagers and possible family history of teeth trouble so I have to watch them a bit more carefully.
Based on ortho xrays, they didn’t see any cavities so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
A word of caution: while I know that you’re intent on paying down your debt, I wouldn’t advise foregoing healthcare (dental in this instance) or even regular maintenance on your car just so that you have more money to throw toward your debt & get out of debt faster. Not doing regular maintenance on your self or your car (or your house, if that applies) just sets you up for a bigger out of pocket expense later. My mechanic always tells me, “you can pay a little bit now to maintain your car, or a lot more later to fix it.” I’m glad you were able to find a reasonably priced alternative that you feel will fit in your budget.
Jean,
I completely agree! Car maintenance is something I’m pretty anal about especially since one of my greatest fears is to have a non running car and be stuck…
As far as the year off of dental checks, I felt we were in a pretty good place and while I did feel about it, I made an educated calculation based on our ages, history and habits. So hopefully this dental hygiene school will work out and voila, no more skipped years or stress for me over the $600 plus for basic maintenance work.
Unless you have caps or something put on dental work is reasonable. They usually give a discount if you pay during the visit. You could always turn down the twice a year xray, and do once instead.