Online Dental Insurance, Individual Dental Plans PPO.
Question: When buying a dental PPO plan how do you know what your true cost for dental services really are? I am looking at the many dental PPO plans available in CA since my dentist only takes PPOs. However the ones I see show that pay 50 percent of major dental services up to UCR. Okay but how do I know the dentist is with in the company UCR fees if none of the plans I review shows what the amount is that they pay up too? How do I make sure not to get hit with UCR charges?
Reply: With PPO plans how to reduce your risk of not having UCR fees would be to see a dentist within your own zip code that is a plan provider. That is not to say you will not have UCR fees but by going to a plan dentist in your own rated area you greatly duce your risk of UCR fees. However with most PPO plans that pay by percentage they are all claims made so you do not know your cost until a claim is processed.
You can submit dental services as a quote only prior to have any dental work started so that you know just how much the company is going to pay and what is the remaining balance that will be left to you.
Also you may want to review PPO plans like AlwaysCare. Although they are a PPO they are one of the few that do pay by percentage but will tell you what they pay toward a given service.