Hi EnLifers! I hope this finds you thriving! I have a little time whiplash, like seriously where did January go?! Today, I’m going to follow-up with the last post around dental insurance. Now if you are wondering why I am so stuck on dental stuff right now, it is because I am in the midst of what seems like a lot of dental work at the moment (see last post re: my lack of dental hygiene J). Anyhow, this past week, I had a root canal and I’m waiting for an appointment to get a new filling from the hole they created with the root canal and possibly a new crown for the tooth. Now, I knew going in to this year that I would need the root canal, however I didn’t know what else might come up. In anticipation, I opened a health savings account so that the out of pocket dental costs wouldn’t disrupt our financial lives and spend plan too much, plus it’s tax free dollars, so double ching-ching for me!! Anyhow, I had already determined that insurance wasn’t cost advantageous, however I stumbled upon dental discount/savings plans on a website called dentalplans.com. There may be more sites like this, but this one happened to be offering a sale on their plans when I visited. I also recognized some of the popular insurance companies represented like Aetna and Cigna, that I just felt comfortable with this site. I wondered if this could be one more way to save a little on the dental work in addition to or instead of the 10% self-pay discount they usually quote. I researched which plans my dental providers accepted (at this point, I have a dentist and endodontist) and looked for the balance in overall price of the plan and the discount provided for the various procedures I needed. The plans ranged in cost from about $80/year to $180/year for individuals and about $130/year to $300/year. The discounts on various procedures ranged from 10-60% AND some of them also served as discount and/or savings on vision, prescriptions, and more. I purchased the Careington POS plan that provided a 20-50% discount and also has other benefits such as pharmacy, vision/LASIK (which I may need renewed soon), hearing, and specialty care. The site was running a sale (remembering 30% off), so normally, the plan would be $199 per year plus a $20 processing fee, so essentially $220 a year, however I got it for $149 plus the $20, so $170. Now all I had to do was sit back and see how this works out ie. if it actually ends up being cheaper for me or not. I figured worst case scenario, I could at least break-even. I plan to track all year and provide an update at the end of 2018 as to how much I actually saved. I have to say I think it will be pretty good as I just did the math below and I’m already in the black as far as savings outweighing the initial upfront costs – see below.
| Normal Procedure Cost | Actual Cost with Savings | Amount Saved | |
| January | $162 | $154 | $12 |
| February | $1200 | $960 | $240 |
| $252 (Total Saved); Amount over breakeven is already $82! |
Ok-well another post in the books! If you are reading this, please subscribe and share with others you think could benefit from it! Continue to thrive as you continue to enhance your financial and overall life!
Happy Love Month!
MK