Was I Taken for a ride by my dentist?!
Question: I went to my dentist yesterday for my cleaning, which I am covered for by my insurance every 6 months. While sitting in the chair waiting my dentist says to me " Your insurance does not cover your root canal" ( I had this done Sept., Oct. '07) I got it done thinking I am covered under my insurance plan and pretty sure the receptionist told me " Oh yes your covered". Any way to try to make a long story short the bill yesterday was $774. Thinking to my self the man did the work I got to pay him, asked him how much he expected maybe for an installment he says " Well, Visa or Mastercard would be good and I'll give you $100 discount. I Pay this and feel very taken advantage of and taken for a ride. I was told today as well by the Better business bureau that If I were to address this I would be told it is My responsibility to see that my insurance covers me.
Answers: I went to my dentist yesterday for my cleaning, which I am covered for by my insurance every 6 months. While sitting in the chair waiting my dentist says to me " Your insurance does not cover your root canal" ( I had this done Sept., Oct. '07) I got it done thinking I am covered under my insurance plan and pretty sure the receptionist told me " Oh yes your covered". Any way to try to make a long story short the bill yesterday was $774. Thinking to my self the man did the work I got to pay him, asked him how much he expected maybe for an installment he says " Well, Visa or Mastercard would be good and I'll give you $100 discount. I Pay this and feel very taken advantage of and taken for a ride. I was told today as well by the Better business bureau that If I were to address this I would be told it is My responsibility to see that my insurance covers me.
The reality is that you are indeed responsible for charges your insurance doesn't cover..."BUT", the dental office can submit a pre-procedure claim for the purpose of having the insurance verify what they will and will not cover. IF they did that and you have it in writing, the dental office accepted responsibility and you don't owe them....On the other hand, if they didn't verify nor did you, you bought the farm and you owe them. By the way did your dentist mention a health credit plan called "Credit Care"...that is a company that finances health procedures and if you pay off in a year the amount they finance, there is no interest charged. The horse is already out of the barn in your case, but if you need additional dental work have the dentist file an approval claim prior to doing the work and get a written statement showing all charges. Good luck and I wish you well.
I have a cousin who is a dentist and I know for a fact he has to have pre-approve all dental work. I bet his insurance person screwed up, you need to ask your insurance to look into tit and see why they didn't cover it..
Hi there. If you have all of your bills from the dentist you should still be able to contact your insurance company for possible reimbursement. The same situation happened to me but at the doctors office. They said I wasnt covered for a particular procedure and it turned out I was. So I took all the paperwork I had to my insurance company and they reimbursed me! Good luck and I hope you get some of your money back!
First off I will say you got a really good deal on your root canel. I don't have insurance and I had to have one done this year. Just the root canel alone was 1200 dollars. This did NOT inculde the crown which was another 1000K! Can you imagine just to save one tooth! I would have had it pulled but the dr. said I need it. Whatever! Also my newphew just has one done and it was 1000 plus 700 for the crown. Are you sure your insurance company didn't cover part of the bill? And when you sign the papers at the densist you promise to pay if the insurance company doesn't. Crazy right?
That's the way it works - the burden is on you to make sure that your insurance is covering the procedures. It's done that way because there are so many different plans even within one provider that no medical office could be expected to keep it straight.
Call your insurance company yourself to make sure that you don't have some coverage - just for your own peace of mind.
The dentist does not have to offer you a discount - they are doing that to encourage you to pay the entire thing up front rather than string it out over a long period of time. You pay them sooner, they get to collect interest on that money as it sits in the bank. You spread it out over a year and they make less on it.
Do be warned that you may be better off making payments to the dentist. If you put it on your credit card and are going to take a long time to pay it off, it could cost you way more than $100. It all depends on your interest rate and how soon you'll be able to pay it off.
Morally, you may have been taken for a ride, but I don't think you'd have a case legally, because you can't prove what your receptionist said or didn't say, and because you could have insisted on a price quote in advance of the work or refused to have the work done. (Of course, I am not a lawyer and am not qualified to offer legal advice.)
If it makes you feel better, I wound up with a bill last year that was MUCH higher than I thought it would be because, while my insurance helped, it didn't cover everything.
I like to think I've learned my lesson. Last time I went to the dentist, I printed out my coverage chart beforehand and had the dentist office give me a price in advance of the work. The people at the dental office were fine with that -- they want to get paid for their work and don't want to have to go through litigation after the fact.
This is exactly correct. There are many dental offices that do not submit your insurance claims for you in the first place. They require the patient to pay upfront and submit the insurance claims to the insurance company on the patient's own time. Most of the reason we submit it for the patients these days is because it makes it more convenient for the patient and they're more willing to come back for routine visits if they have less work to do.
The insurance is your responsibility as the plan was assigned to you by your employer. The contract for coverage is between you and the employer and the insurance company, not the dental provider. The fact that your dentist granted you a discount while still using a credit card is very generous. The dental office is charged a percentage when you use your card there as a form of payment. So he lost out on more than just the $100 he discounted you.
Sometimes insurance companys are incredibly slow in getting around to settling your claims. So, it can be months later when you hear your procedure wasn't covered. The information you received when you signed up for insurance with your employer should detail what is and isn't covered. Look it over carefully.
Even if you didn't have insurance, you would still be liable for the charges. This is, in effect, what the fine print says at the bottom of the form you sign when you agree to have the dentist do the work you need.
Yeah check with them first because someone you are covered and they make mistakes. They were charging my Mommy for my tooth extractions. So she went to the office and told them What the hell this was and that's why she has insurance and all that. But yeah check with them sometimes they make stupid mistakes