Can’t remember anyone on this board saying there was any good dental insurance, so I’m not optimistic. My grad-student daughter just got a consult with an endodontist who recommends 2 root canals and possibly crowns (which the dentist would do). With her current insurance, it would cost her $5313 for root canals and crowns. Endodontist’s office recommended changing to Delta Dental insurance and that would bring her cost down to $2550.
What insurance company would allow a patient to sign up and right away need $6000 worth of work? They claim there is no waiting period. Should she switch, or just keep what she’s got? Any other suggestions?
And I can’t understand why teeth in an otherwise healthy young person would need root canals, without any trauma or illnesses or even cavities.
I had my dentist suggest a root canal under my crown. He aw a dark spot underneath. Personally I don’t think that is justification enough.
You can get a second opinion. Also (for what it is worth) a friend told me that his friend went to Mexico to get dental work and was quite happy and saved lots of money.
(AI: People are traveling to Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, Costa Rica, Hungary, and India to save 40%–80% on costs. These destinations are popular for high-quality, affordable care—including implants and, crowns).
Funny you should mention this. I just saw this video on YT this morning:
Root canals are only ‘needed’ in teeth that are dead or abscessed. Is she experiencing pain? Did the endodontist test the nerves of the teeth in question? Did he show her the x-rays that showed dead teeth and/or inflamed tooth pulps? She should definitely get a second opinion, regardless.
She is cold-sensitive, and the xrays do show something unusual but exactly what I don’t know. I think she’s already paid the dentist $300, the endodontist $350 for the consult, and is near the annual limit on her current insurance. She’s currently looking at an endodontics school, there are two about 3 hours from her. They’re maybe half price.
Being cold sensitive could just mean that her gums are receding and exposing more of the root. However, if something is showing up on the x-rays, then it should clearly not be ignored. Going to a dental school is a great idea, just be aware that there are usually long waiting periods to get an appointment and the appointments themselves will take longer since the students do the work under the supervision of a teacher. Also, there may be more visits needed to get work done vs. going to a regular dental office.
As for dental insurance, when I was looking at getting coverage last year, Delta and Mutual of Omaha had the best coverage – monthly premiums, wait times, procedures covered, annual limit, etc.
We have been with Delta Dental. The Dentist clinics we use is a corporation and has an agenda. We have not checked all the other dentists. The Clinic always wants patients to have periodontal treatment and almost all cavities lead to crowns. So I would look at the list of dentists first on each insurer, and see if they might be candidates.
I go to Prisma Dental in San Jose Costa Rica and stay in an AirBnB 2 blocks away. They provide transportation. The cost is about 1/4 of US. But the care is Outstanding. Even at the same cost, I will not get dental care in US ever again. Costa Rica is a fabulous tourist destination, so plan on staying a week the first time. All my root canals and US crowns failed, so I now go directly to Implants. I am 77 and had 32 teeth at 60. I am down to 24 and haven’t figured out what I am doing wrong, but Prisma is helping me more than any expensive US dentist.
i had all of my root canals leak bacteria very slowly, and i am sure many of my aging afflicting were from that. i have several implants, and root canals are not a solution for me. can
i do not get accesses but just a dull ache, and the dentist can tell after he pulls tooth that there is infection. Crowns only make the infection go deeper.
I have good luck with dental source, a discount plan.
First of all, you cannot insure for something you already need. If that were the case, you could let your house burn down and buy insurance afterward to rebuild it.
The first question is why an endodontist needs to do the root canal? I am a GP and have done them since I was a sophomore in dental school. In my area, GPs charge about $1100 for a molar root canal, and endodontists about $1600. Plus most endodontists demand CAT scans of the tooth before starting.
Second question is why crowns are needed after a molar root canal. My go-to for a young person is large silver fillings. (No, large white resin fillings will not hold up for long.) I have photos of such silver fillings after 30 years in the mouth. Crowns can always be done sometime in the future. A large silver filling costs about $350. A buildup and crown around $1500.
Teeth need root canals, even in young people, when the pulp of a tooth is either inflamed or abscessed. I cannot diagnose this without x-rays and some other tests. By the way, the components of resin fillings are more acidic and irritating to the pulps, so more often cause root canals to be necessary.
What is the BEST way to find a CRUMMY dentist? Go to one advertising on TV.
What is the SECOND BEST way to find a CRUMMY dentist? Consult the Prostituting Provider list of any dental insurance company. Why is that?
First, you have to know what it takes a dentist to get on such a list. Here is a run-down:
Sign a long contract favorable to the insurance company.
Agree to office chart audits on a moment’s notice.
Agree to defend the insurance company.
Agree to use the company’s abitrators.
Agree to charge 20-30% less for procedures.
So who signs up to be Nitwit Providers for the insurance cabals? Losers. Inexperienced dentists with no patients. Dentists with no problem committing billing fraud, including “upcoding” procedures.
Many, many times I see patients bring in estimates from dentists on these lists. Most of the time these plans are filled with unnecessary treatment and uncharges I would never bill for in my office.
No, that is not correct. We have to do them in teeth whose pulps are irreversibly inflamed as well. Many times there is no evidence on x-ray. It is often a difficult diagnosis few patients appreciate. On the upper arch we can numb individual teeth to isolate the offending tooth. On the lower arch, we cannot.
Henrius, thanks for taking the time to reply. Daughter ended up getting another insurance plan which, hard to believe, has no waiting period, and then the 2 root canals, so it ended up costing her $1200 for insurance and endodontist. They were front teeth, and the endo didn’t think crowns are necessary because the holes are really small. The appt went well and she hasn’t had any problems since, and hopefully the claim will get processed just fine and there won’t be any surprises. She doesn’t need any more surprises.
Why the dentist couldn’t do them, I don’t know, but dentists have been sending patients to endodontists at least since I got my root canal in 2002. My dentist at that time said endos are more efficient and better at it because they do it all the time, and he might have some problems to correct once in a while if he did them himself, and he didn’t want to deal with any of it.
If you charge $1100 for a molar root canal, I should be a dental tourist and come to your practice next time I need one! That’s what mine cost in 2002.
Good luck with your cell phone search, BTW. I don’t recommend you get an iPhone because Apple tends to make phones good for Apple and good for most people, with bells & whistles you’re not going to want and will be annoyed at. You might like to use a camera when traveling to take a photo of, say, maps of a museum layout or subway system when there are no paper copies.
Here is the truth about dental practice. Sadly, it is going the way of the corrupt medical model.
Insurers offer a plan at a “great” price IF you go to a dentist of THEIR choice. Remember, the only interest of dental benefit carriers is minimizing the dollar amount of claims paid. To do this, they set “allowable” fees as low as possible and get their participating dentists to sign long contracts benefitting the insurance company.
The Prostituting Providers who sign these sleazy contracts look at the procedures and low fees and try to figure out which procedures they can actually make a profit doing. If they figure they will not make money, they will refer them out to specialists. Molar root canals is typically something they cannot make money on so they refer to specialists. The paradox is that endodontists on the stupid plan are allowed higher fees. So typically patients do not save any money over going to a regular dentist who is not a Nitwit Provider.
There are many great procedures, such as gold crowns, that will NEVER be done by Prostituting Providers because they will lose money doing them. If they do partial dentures at all, they will use cheap Chinese labs and take shortcuts.
I worked as an endodontist for a time to keep the office of an endodontist open after he had a heart attack. Their only advantage is most have a surgical microscope. which reduces eye strain.
I referred a very, very difficult root canal out to a specialist only because I thought he could do it while saving the crown. He turned the case over to his freshly-graduate endodontic associate, who promptly ran out the side of the root, making extraction necessary. Now I wish I had cut the crown off and tried it myself. There is nothing magic about endodontists.
