If kids who are not proficient and enthusiastic enough to maintain their oral health, they will be susceptible to several oral health conditions. The most common of them all is tooth decay and gum disease.
Tooth decay, also called dental caries, occurs when plaques from the food kids eat form on their tooth’s surface. This will then lead to the growth of bacteria that will convert the sugar in the food they ate to acid, which will simultaneously cause sporadic damage to the teeth if they do not remove the plaque and expose their teeth to fluoride by brushing and flossing regularly.
Gum disease or periodontal disease primarily affects the surrounding tissues that strengthen and support the teeth. The main symptoms of gum disease are bleeding and swelling of the gum, and severe pains. Gum disease is caused by poor oral hygiene and may result in tooth loss.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than fifty million children suffer from tooth decay or dental caries of milk teeth. However, the treatment of oral health conditions is expensive, with about five percent of the summed up health expenditure, coupled with a twenty percent out-of-pocket expenditure. However, the treatment of oral health conditions is not covered by traditional health insurance.
Dental insurance is a type of insurance plan you can purchase as an add-on coverage to your health insurance or as a stand-alone insurance policy to financially protect you from the expensive cost of treating oral health conditions.
The standard dental insurance policy does not offer similar coverage for adults and children—under but not above eighteen years of age—but is treated differently.
According to the health care law, dental insurance is an important health benefit for kids. If you are purchasing a health insurance coverage plan for an eighteen or under eighteen aged individual, dental coverage must be coupled with your health insurance plan either as an add-on or a stand-alone plan without having to pay for the dental insurance coverage specifically. On the contrary, adults above eighteen years of age are not eligible for this benefit and would have to purchase the dental coverage plan separately.
There is no universal coverage for dental insurance because there are several significant factors that play a significant role in the type of coverage the kid will be a beneficiary of. These considerable factors include the type of dental plan, your insurance provider and your location (State). However, most dental insurance plans offer a hundred percent coverage without the need for out-of-pocket payments for the following dental care:
– Checkups, which could be once or twice per annum
– Several forms of preventive care to protect your kids from several oral health conditions, such as gum disease and tooth decay
– The cleaning of your kids’ teeth per annum—which is a limited service
– Fluoride treatment, which will protect the teeth from tooth decay or dental caries
– The treatment of tooth cavities by a process called tooth filling
– The strengthening, positioning and alignment of mispositioned and misaligned teeth or bite patterns, usually with the use of orthodontics, such as a brace
One of the most significant factors you must consider before purchasing a dental insurance plan for your children is the price. The average cost of dental insurance for adults is about $350 per annum because adults usually purchase the dental plan separately from their health insurance. On the contrary, according to the health care law, children usually get dental insurance coverage attached to their health insurance without having to pay for it.
However, there are some dental insurance companies that do not offer coverage specifically for kids but offer family dental plans. The cost of a family dental plan for a family of four ranges from $850 to $1000 per annum.
Everyone’s needs may differ in diverse ways, which makes the best dental insurance provider of a particular individual may appear bad to another due to differences in their requirements. Hence, to be on the safer side, you will have to consider several factors before purchasing any dental insurance plan from an insurance provider.
You will get the best dental insurance provider for your kids if you ask yourself the following questions.
– What will I be required to pay for the premium per month and per annum?
– What are the maximum payments I will have to pay out of my pocket for dental care?
– What is the annual coverage limit provided by the insurer?
– Do they have any dental plans fot the coverage of your kid’s oral health condition?
– Is the dental insurance company financially buoyant to pay for my claims upon request for any oral health condition?
– Does the dental insurance company offer coverage for a family dental plan or the child-specific dental plan?
However, aside from the services the dental insurance company offers, you will also need to research the dental insurance company you will be investing your kids’ dental care. You will have to check the length of time the company has been in business, their customer services, and most importantly, you will be more secure if you check the dental insurance company’s reviews by questioning their current customers.
The dental insurance plan you can purchase differs across various dental insurance companies with individual insurance policies. Some may offer you a child-specific dental plan, while others may provide you with a family dental plan to protect you from the cost of dental care financially.
There are, however, several insurers that offer maximum dental coverage at an affordable price, among which the best of them include
– Humana
– Guardian Dental
– MetLife (family dental plan)
– Delta Dental (Child-specific plan)
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