Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Suppafly 587 days ago
>I'd get a professional teeth cleaning every 3 months if my insurance covered

Same, especially if I could get just a cleaning and not deal with the exam. I've often thought it'd be nice to be able to just pop in and get them professionally cleaned without the whole dental appointment around the cleaning.

2 comments

Ask your dentist about it. This is something they can do. Typical insurance covers an exam and cleaning 2x a year, so you'd pay for the other 2 cleanings (maybe with a discount), but they can absolutely do a cleaning with no exam, or usually just an unbilled quick look if the dentist has a minute. While cleaning your teeth, obvious problems will be obvious, and non-obvious problems can wait until the next exam.

At 3x a year it gets weird. Insurance companies are starting to at least 6 months between exams, rather than covering two per year.

>Insurance companies are starting to at least 6 months between exams, rather than covering two per year.

Medical insurance has always been like that, which is annoying when you have kids that need them for school and activities because they sometimes want them to be dated within a certain timeframe. Everytime you are off a week or two, it pushes the appointment further and further from the 6 months, by the time your kid is in their teens, the 6 months have lapped each other.

Ask if they have a cash rate for extra cleanings past insurance.

Many doctors, not just dentists, will do this. Usually about 1/3-1/2 the rate.