[click170]

"dental coverage isn't part of the plan"

Healthcare, at least where I'm from, doesn't cover preventative dentistry, but it does include anything life threatening which includes the situation from the article. I would sincerely hope the US system would behave similarly.

[_delirium]

US health insurance tends to distinguish based on the location whether it's "dental" or "medical": if an infection sends you to the hospital, then it's medical, but if you go to the dentist to get it fixed, then it's dental. Typically the latter wouldn't get covered by health insurance regardless of severity.

There are some miscellaneous oddities; for example, if you visit a dentist and have antibiotics prescribed, typically the visit won't be covered (it's a dentist so counts as dental), but the antibiotics will be covered (they're a medical prescription).

[bdonlan]

The problem is, the average person can't tell whether a toothache is a minor, non-covered issue, or a life-threatening problem that would be eligible for coverage - without going to see a dentist out-of-pocket, that is.

[hobin]

That's not too hard. Having a minor or even a somewhat annoying toothache for a day won't kill you. As can be seen in the article, such infections don't develop overnight. Just wait a few days, and if you still need to use ibuprofen or what have you to make it go away, then you can be sure you need to go visit a dentist. Making it a habit to use painkillers to deal with toothache = bad.

[dedward]

most people with impacted, rotting, painful wisdom teeth know damn well they need to have it taken out. some just decide not to because nobody likes the dentist and they think it will just go away.

[hobin]

Truth be told, in most cases, it will 'just go away'. (Read: said tooth will fall out, and it will HURT.) Though it's better not to take these kind of chances.