It’s open enrollment season for your dental insurance soon, and we have some thoughts for you about that.
The first thing you might notice is that we aren’t on any insurance companies’ “Preferred Provider” list. That’s because we don’t want to be preferred by an insurance company, we want to be preferred by you. This is a position we took many years ago when PPOs were becoming popular. Although we constantly receive solicitations to join provider panels, we choose not to sign because we feel our patients and our practice are a lot healthier and happier when a third party isn’t deciding what our patients can and can’t have.
What this means for you is that we are an “out-of-network” provider on most insurance plans. Our patients pay the difference between our fees and the insurance company’s allowance, and we are grateful to our many, many patients who choose to do exactly that. Many patients are surprised how little that difference usually is. And all our patients know that they can trust us to always do what is in their best interest, and not wonder whether we are recommending unnecessary treatment, or altering recommendations to expensive, but uncovered procedures.
Part of the fabric of our practice is to always do the right thing, and we appreciate the many patients we have who recognize that and continue to support our way of practice.