| Also, regarding the guy that doesn't trust dentists that posted below...consider this
- You had a very good dentist for several years that never suggested you do unnecessary procedures This dentist had the balls to drop out of network, probably because he's good and has enough patients to not cave in to the absurd demands of insurance companies (they pay far less than a FFS practice, just FYI) So you decide to drop your good dentist, and go to lower quality ones, just because they are in-network (guess what? these guys actually need to drop their fees because they don't have enough patients otherwise)...and then you find out that these new dentists are lower quality and need to prescribe unnecessary procedures to make ends meet Solution: like in any other field, value quality over price, go back to your old dentist. It's like Apple charging more for an iPhone simply because it's higher quality and is time-tested, of course if you buy cheap cell phones they are worse and screw you up some other way. The real problem is insurance companies here, they are screwing both dentists and patients extracting money in a place where they shouldn't be (why do you need a middleman between a doctor and a patient anyways?) |
I agree, we don't.
Problem is right now if I pay for dentistry via "insurance" then it is pre-tax dollars and or my employer pays some/all of the premium. If I pay it completely out of pocket, I am now using post-tax dollars and my employer isn't picking up a percentage.
Our incentives themselves are irrational. You're essentially forced to go through insurance/your employer, and punished if you don't.
I'd love to see both dental + health insurance "unbundled" from employment, and a large HSA-like pre-tax savings account which can be used on premiums, that employers can choose to contribute to (in cash dollars). That way if you wanted to skip dental insurance, and pay per-treatment you could (and pick any health insurance plan you liked, including ones that could include dental benefits).
PS - The reason the existing HSA structure doesn't work for well for dental is two fold: It requires high-deductible health insurance, and the cap is low when you start using it for other areas (vision/dental).