Fulltimers: so what do YOU do for a dental plan?
 

Do you just pay as you go or did you set up a dental plan for yourself?

I've always wondered about this. I've been a full timer for over 5 years now working from home, but the job I left was at a large hospital and I had a great group health plan with a great benefits package. That package included a phenominal dental plan.

I can set up a similar plan myself with Blue Cross..... but since I'm only a workforce of one I don't have the power that my old hospital union had..... so I'm limited in what I can do here. It would be great if webmasters had a group plan, not sure what that would entail.

So far I've just been paying as I go. In recent years I've been paying about $250 per year to the dentist, for 1 regular cleaning/checkup, and for 1 filling (an old filling I had crumbled so I had to get it refilled).

That's pretty cheap as far as I know, but in the US it might be quite a bit more expensive.



So what do you all do as far as dental plans go?

For dentistry I pay cash.

An insurance plan for something non-catasrophic like dentistry is just going to end up costing you the same as cash anyway, or higher. You just pay it out in advance to the insurance company monthly, and let them earn on your cash. Just as easy and effective to put the money in your own accounts.

I go to Tijuana and pay cash|jester|

I pay cash...for everything. I don't believe in paying interest. I prefer to collect interest.

I used to have dentistry covered by my health plan....it actually wound up being cheaper for me to pay via cash....dentists (at least all the ones I've used) usually give major discounts on pricing if there's no insurance. I pay about $100 checkup in cash whereas I was paying $90 when I had an insurance plan (which was 80% coverage and cost me $35/mo to have denistry benefits).

It might come in handy for serious dentistry reconstruction (insurance I mean)...but the only real expensive dentist item I've had in years was a single root canal which wasn't all that expensive (it was the crown which was costly but isn't covered by most dental plans anyways).

The only insurance/benefits I have now is all disability/disaster insurance. If I'm hospitalized or have a serious health problem I'm covered....but simple things like prescriptions I don't care about (especially since if it really starts getting expensive, it becomes tax deductible anyways)

I pay cash
barbara use to be a hygienist

my dentist knows that so i dont get ripped off

most of time she will call the dentist and say he needs this or he doesnt need that

from what ive seen theres a LOT of unnecessary
work done

it seems that a lot of root canals arent really needed

but I guess that like anything else

I suppose I was thinking more of the family plan.... because back in my hospital career days I had the option to have any wife I might have and kids included in the plan... it was really a terrific benefits package.

Being that I'm single, you guys are of course correct, it's perfectly fine to just pay cash as you go. I wasn't sure just how expensive dentistry is in the US though, so that's mostly why I brought it up.

But for webmasters who also have a wife and kids to think about, that group plan I was under would be something to have, definitely. I imagine the total yearly dentist bill is vastly different for someone who has 2 or 3 kids.

Geesh! now I feel all weird and stuff. I just brush my teeth regularly and try to avoid biting any rocks!!|couch|

spaz

Going to the dentist is also covered by our health insurance. The trick to get good inexpensive health insurance is to contact your local chamber of commerce. They usually have a deal where a small business can purchase it directly through them. With all their small business members doing that, they get good prices.

Seeeing as it's the wife & 2 kids here with me, we have a dental/medical plan thru a local health care provider under my company name. Of course, the cost is outrageous, but what are you gonna do?

Im glad i had dental insurance when my son needed all his wok done i paid 500 for 10k worth of work.

Saved me a huge chunk of change.

I have no teeth. For some odd reason men seem to really like this.

I broke a tooth in half when I was about 9 years old and for the last 20 years when a dentist tells me that I need a root canal and a crown I move on. The tooth has been capped twice and is perfectly healthy so why do I need to kill it with a root canal?

I pay an extra $20 or so a month to cover the family. It's tax deductable and will cover any major issues. I don't use it for the regular check ups because as already posted, dentists give deep discounts for cash.

Gummer! |jester|

NOW you're talking! That should be something a lot of US webmasters take the time to check out. In certain situations I'm sure something like that would save someone a lot of money.

I think all local Chambers of Commerce do this for it's members. Ours asks for $100/year for dues and then the insurance is about $7-800/ quarter. With all the members together, they get the same prices as a large company buying insurance. When I was first starting out, a friend of mine asked if I was a member and I just laughed. He told me the only reason he was a member was for the insurance.

It would be great if webmasters could get together and do the same thing but, they would all have to live in the same state and probably county. And I know New York State is funny with insurance. All the good deals you get spammed with or even the program ARS was running are not available here.

I also have a real estate company I use for investing so I qualified into an organization of new england small businesses that get group rates, so I pay $36/mo for dental insurance and $110/mo for health insurance. I think that's very good for US.

As a health care worker in a hospital that had 5,000 workers represented by 7 different unions, I was paying about $8 per month for my single person coverage, and those with families were paying around $12 or $15 per month..... for dental coverage. Of course our general medical is free (in the sense that there is no charge to see a doctor, it is taken out of our taxes).


I do miss that dental plan though.

I have Blue Cross currently for $309 a month, on their new personal plan, its only a 70/30 plan as I didnt want to pay $900+ for the wife and I on their group business plan.

For dental we just pay as we go since we live in a small town its pretty cheap. My wife is getting braces right now for $1500 for the entire thing. Braces, retainer, teeth pulled to straighten it out etc. I think thats the cheapest I have ever heard and its basically because we are paying cash and in the middle of nowhere.

Andy

Hi Jim...i know something about the insurance industry, i was planning to be an actuary, but ended up here..much better choice. :)

anyway, seeing an interest in this here i placed a call today to some major insurance companies and spoke with their underwriters. I will now try to put together what i need to come up with a plan to cover all webmasters in Canada and the US.

have a call scheduled tomorrow with some people about it as well. I will post back here.

any companies wanting to help sponsor such a thing can shoot me an email, and we can discuss....preliminary stages right now.

Ill find out more juicy details tomorrow.

Im on my wifes dental plan thru her work. As far as health insurance I am self employed and have it thru a company that writes small businesses.

soggy

Interesting. Porno Webmaster Insurance Plan. :D

I'm getting my root canal Tuesday. Since it's self pay I asked him if there was anything he could do. I got 50% off and will pay $400. It pays to ask. ;)

I have been looking around as my husband is thinking of giving up his job so that he isn't spending 8 hours there and 8 hours on the computer. We have to have insurance with 2 little ones, and even with his so called great group rate I am finding that we can get something similar in price. You just have to look, look, look. And here in my community they won't issue us a business license because our neighbors are old and won't agree to some freaky porno people next to them, so no break for us in joining the chamber of commerce. The city doesn't have a problem taking my tax money though.

i have wooden teeth...

I was waiting for this post. :D

Give Shemp a tack hammer and a wood chisel and he's good to go.


I was waiting for this post as well. Sounds like you're the perfect guy for the job Phoenix. |thumb

It is a good idea but I know New York has something strange that won't allow insurance from other states.

I wish this were the case where I live. From what I understand it's true in most states but not here in California. Checked with my local chamber and they said the lawyers ruined it here for us in cali |sad|

So far paying cash once in a while has been cheaper than insurance.

well...i have been back and forth with various people

basically we need to form an association of sorts, then we can apply for group coverage.

Like a webmaster guild or something.

the guild also caries the repsonsibility of the insurees, so if they are ripping off the insurance companies it comes back to the guild.


This would almost form a union among webmasters..not something i like.

If i can get more input from people here it would be helpful.


Is this something people would be willing to donate their time to?
programming skills etc


i doubt we will find many sponsor programs to step up and shoulder the costs, but im guessing we could still get a substantial discount especally if we have 1000 + people in the guild.

it would probably require a monthly due to belong..something small..like 10 bucks or something. then of course you will have to pay for the insurance, but it should get us all a good rate.


thoughts?

i dont want to spend my days on the phone with these people if it is not a viable plan.

I would be into lending a hand, certainly. I'm just not sure how much interest from webmasters there would be for this. I'm sure a few test threads on some of the larger boards like here and GFY etc would answer that question pretty quick.

It's been proposed before, but I've never seen it get far.

But maybe this is the time. It would be nice to see adult webmasters get more organized and professional.

For it to work, you would need these two things I think:

A. the insurance package would have to be a decent one, with a lot of hospitals and providers willing to honor it.

and

B. The organization would either have to be extremely neutral and obviously fair (like some trust kind of thing managed by lawyers hired as uninterested parties), or be backed by a highly respected group. Otherwise all the little political squabbles that adult is rife with will tear it apart.

Sooner or later a functional adult webmaster industry group will form.

(Didn't both Free Speech Coalition and ASCAP talk about insurance groups at some point?)

why dont we all move to canada

I'm pretty lucky as far as health and dental insurance goes, my wife is retired from General Motors and we have the creame de la creame of insurance plans.

I do know that it's tough without something like that though, my sister who is also in the biz pays something like $700 a month for insurance.

Over the years I've seen a few groups try to get something going on like a group insurance thing for webmasters, but so far they all pretty much fizzled out...probably because of the multi-state problem.

health insurance costs me 1100.00 a month thats including the new addition

I use NHCD which is a discount program and saves me a TON each year with the kids and everything....

For me it's not the cost savings of the insurance that's the issue. It's the issue of being on an individual plan. Legally an insurance company can't cancel my policy because someone covered needs expensive ongoing treatment for major illnesses but they can legally raise my monthly rate to $1,000,000 if they choose. Most states offer protection with group plans but not individual plans. That's the only reason I'm interested in group health insurance.

The association could be dedicated to small web based businesses. Basically anyone that doesn't have a store front but sells goods or services on-line.

The association could also negotiate discounts with legal services, hosting and software providers. As some people have pointed out NY and I think New Jersey are different beasts and may not qualify for a national group sort of thing.

Finding 1,000 webmaster may be tough and then you need to find someone in each state that's willing to handle the paper work.

We pay cash. Our dentist also discounts for cash.. well basically it's like this.

You can't get a "price" for services until you say whether or not you have insurance. My cleanings are 60 dollars. They charge insurance a lot more for the same thing.

Our office just flat out told me, that dental insurance is a scam. It doesn't cover 'everything' and it limits what you can be covered for.

It used to be different years ago....

I'm getting my invisalign braces next week. |bananna|
I've been to the dentist a lot in preparation.

For dental, I just pay for myself and my 2 kids whenever we go...which is usually twice a year. We have pretty good teeth so it's not a big deal.

For medical insurance, I've used Blue Cross since 1996 when I started this company. Blue Cross does go up on my rates every year. Last year, it was right at $450 per month for me (I'm a 41 year old male) and two children. This year they were gonna go up to over $500 per month...and they offered me an alternative plan where I "self insure" with a higher deductible and only pay $294 per month. I calculated the best and worst case scenarios on both Blue Cross plans and determined that the $294/mo plan was the best either way, so I switched us to that.

As others have pointed out though, for an individual policy such as mine, they go up on the rates every year. I'd imagine that when I'm in my 50's and 60's that rate is going to be exorbitant!

I would be interested in a webmasters' group plan.

Hey Greenguy and Jim, how about a plan through your board as a "Chamber of Internet Marketers?"

A good friend of mine had his appendix blow up and no insurance. He racked up many hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills for a month or so long stay in the hospital. I think it is well worth it to have health insurance, especially if you have children.

I HAve teeth
 

Unlike cleo that has no teeth ...LOL

I do have a pair of pliers that will do the trick;)




Ernie G.

ernie@greg-gregory.com

http://www.greg-gregory.com

Pay as I go...it's been very expensive this year as my wife got a coupel root canals and I had about 6 teeth worked on (2 cavities and some chipping). Grand total of around $4,000!

On my old hospital plan from Blue Cross, 80% of that bill would have been covered for me.

I think for regular checkups, cleanings and the odd cavity, a dental plan isn't really needed in most cases. But in a situation like Rictor just described, a good dental plan can really ease things up finanically.

Maybe webmasters do need something like this. Not a union, but some sort of organization where they can register, pay a small monthly fee, and be covered for certain things that are otherwise quite costly. Could be a good business opportunity for someone with the time and the know-how to put it together and make it fly... but sadly that person is not me.