Advantages of Offering a Dental Benefits Plan to Employees (Part
1 of 3)
A Dental insurance or dental benefit plan is viewed upon as a
much sought after employee benefit. So financially it makes
sense to have a dental benefit plan in place to recruit and
retain employees. Moreover, dental health is a very important
part of overall employee health and man days lost due to dental
problems or dental discomfort of an employee equates to
financial loss for the employer.
Unlike most medical conditions, dental maladies and treatments
are low risk, predictable and low cost. These factors contribute
to offering dental insurance to employees a good option
financially. Dental diseases are preventable by maintenance and
often involve only maintenance costs like x-rays and
examinations. Treatment is rendered cheap due to diagnosis in
early stages of the disease. Keeping these financial factors in
mind, dental insurance options can also be self funded. History
does not show any extremes in costs or utilization of this form
of employee benefit.
Selecting the right Dental Insurance Plan
Selecting the right dental plan involves a lot of factors which
have to be considered with due care.
Dental insurance plans are basically agreements between the
employer and the insurance company. Most plans offered by dental
insurance companies allow for part reimbursement of dental
treatment expenses. Many plans also discourage certain kind of
treatments or allow access to certain of dentists. To consider
these points one has to go through the plan very carefully with
a toothcomb. For example choosing a dentist is not same as
choosing a dentist from "the list", or if the plan does not
cover one kind of treatment, it is wrong to infer that your
regular dentist is incompetent.
Many plans do not cover pre existing conditions. Some may not
cover implants and so on. Due to these preconditions, the final
treatment may be paid for in part only or in insurance parlance
you might be reimbursed for LEAT (Lease Expensive Alternative
Treatment). Dental insurance plans vary in fixing the UCR
(usual, customary, and reasonable) in a certain geographical
area. UCR may vary from plan to plan and company to company
despite operating in the same area. Therefore fixation of this
UCR level would define the liability of the patient. In some
plans the patient may have to pay more and in some he may have
to pay less depends upon the plan the employer has offered.