We recently had a good lesson in why an emergency fund is necessary.
While eating nuts one night, part of one of my teeth disintegrated. I thought the 3 pieces I found in my mouth were small rocks till I ran my tongue over my teeth and discovered a jagged edge on one of my upper molars.
Mirrors and a flashlight revealed that the corner of my tooth next to a filling was gone.
I brushed my teeth and put in my retainer, an invisalign type, to keep me from going crazy running my tongue over the jagged edge. I left in in while eating breakfast and lunch the next day, which was awkward, but it kept food from accumulating in the tooth or causing more problems.
First thing in the morning I called the dentist and got an appointment after lunch.
I figured I'd need a crown, which would probably run about $400 (when I got two teeth crowned three years ago, we paid about $750 out of pocket). I was really hoping costs hadn't gone up much in the meantime.
The x-ray showed decay in the area that remained, which wasn't surprising- it's been bothering me for awhile but I just thought it was a new cavity or the filling being stupid. Turns out that the crack and subsequent crumbling was caused by the amalgam filling expanding with nowhere to go. Stupid filling.
Anyway, the decay was close to the nerve, so there was also the possibility of a root canal. The dentist cleaned out the decay and the offending filling, then decided to just do a new ceramic filling and buildup the area that had crumbled. I was told to pay attention to how my tooth is feeling- if there's more problems, I'd have to go back in, do a root canal and put a crown on it. This won't be cheap, so I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary anytime soon.
While I was waiting for the numbing meds to take effect I was running through what money we had available to pay for the procedure. Last week we received some additional pay from Mr. S's trip to Japan in December, but it was supposed to be the start of our emergency fund. One crown would almost wipe it all out. A root canal... we'd need more. Luckily we only had to do a filling, and it only cost $40, leaving the beginnings of our emergency fund mostly intact.
It did emphasize the need for an emergency fund. We only pay 20% of the cost of a filling, which isn't too expensive to begin with, but crowns are only covered 50%- the other 50% is out of pocket. We'd have to pay 40% of the cost of a root canal, but since I don't know what they run I don't know how much our portion would be. In any case, having money in our emergency fund would mean we could get things like a crown or a root canal taken care of without having to put them off till money is available or pay for them with a credit card. Once we get our debts paid off we'll be able to add to our savings, expanding it beyond just a $1000 emergency fund, and allowing us to be able to pay cash for multiple emergencies. Like a root canal and work that had to be done on the car.
I went in for my regularly scheduled cleaning today and had them check the tooth. I haven't been able to chew on that side of my mouth for the last week and a half because of pressure sensitivity, and it's very sensitive to hot and cold as well. So I'm going in next week for a root canal and crown. Yay. Not.
I was hoping we'd have the money already saved so we don't have to use a credit card to pay for the procedure. Unfortunately, that's not going to be the case.
In the past I've considered dropping our dental insurance- we pay about $110 a month for the three of us, which I think is a bit steep if all we're doing is getting regularly scheduled cleanings and exams- we're paying more than $1300 a year for services that only run about $300-400.
If we saved that money specifically for times it was needed, would we be saving money? Like doctors, dentists will give a discount if you pay cash, so I think we would save money, even with the odd filling, crown, or root canal thrown in.
The key would be, of course, to actually save the money we would have spent on the insurance premiums and set it aside for this purpose. I think we could do this, once we've got the credit cards paid off and are actively building our savings. Until then, we're keeping our dental insurance.
Has anyone tried paying cash for dental services instead of having insurance? How has it worked out?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Jared and I don't have dental insurance. We looked into buying some and even asked the dentist what insurance company paid well (she said Aflac), but when I looked at the numbers they didn't add up. The pay out on crowns and root-canals was so low, and there was a long waiting period before they would cover those procedures. So we've been paying cash. We get 10% discount for paying on the day of service. This year has been expensive, but that's mostly since it's been 4 years since anyone went to the dentist and Jared and I both had a lot of work we needed done. I figure most years we'll come in cheaper than the cost of premiums, but we are saving up for some of those bigger problems. When the kids are older and we're approaching braces, we might sign up for a plan. But not yet.
ReplyDelete