Below is a brief explanation of some common dental benefits. If you are not familiar with the dental plan offered through your employer, contact your Human Resources department, the dental insurance carrier, or PSW Benefit Resources to request a copy of the dental summary of benefits for your plan.
Preventive services include cleanings, X-rays and evaluations. Basic services include fillings and extractions and other similar types of services. Major services include bridges, crowns and other surgical types of services. Not all plans cover the same major services. It is important to check with your dental carrier for a list of covered services, especially before having any major services provided. Some plans will even require that you submit a pre-determination for services over a certain dollar amount.
Most PPO type dental plans will have a calendar year deductible that applies to basic and major services. The deductible is usually waived for preventive services such as cleanings and X-rays. It is important to remember that the calendar year is not the same as the plan year. Your plan year may run from 10/1/06 through 9/30/07 but a Calendar Year runs from January to December. For example, during open enrollment you enroll in the company dental plan effective 10/1/06. You go to your dentist and have services that require the calendar year deductible to be met in November 2006. This satisfies the calendar year deductible for 2006. If you were to then have additional services in January 2007, you will have to pay another deductible for the 2007 calendar year.
Most dental plans include calendar year maximums such as:
- Maximum benefits payable for preventive, basic and major dental services (orthodontia will usually have a separate maximum)
- Maximum number of services. For example, 2 cleanings per calendar year or 2 full-mouth X-rays per calendar year.
* Interesting Facts
1. In ancient times people believed that when you had a stabbing toothache you had a toothworm. They believed that when the pain was severe the worm was “thrashing about”. When the pain subsided the worm was at rest. This folklore was stubbornly defended until the beginning of the 18th century.
- To treat a toothworm, people would smear honey on the teeth and would wait overnight for the toothworm to appear so they could pluck it out.
- Frogs were also used to cure a toothache. Relief from a toothache could be obtained by either spitting into a frogs mouth or by placing a frog on the cheek or the side of the head.
- Some people believed that by placing a slice of onion on the ear of the side of the aching tooth they would get relief from the pain.
Donkey milk was used as a mouthwash to strengthen teeth and gums in ancient Greece.
2. Did you know that George Washington wore dentures? He suffered from chronic toothaches and by the time he was inaugurated in 1790, he had lost all but one tooth, his lower left bicuspid, to extractions. The artist who painted his presidential portrait, Gilbert Stuart, padded his cheeks and lips with cotton because he thought Washington’s cheeks and lips looked sunken.
* Source: Delta Dental Website