Take care of your teeth AND your wallet

Dental expenses can be pretty minimal for years. A cleaning here, a filling there.

Then, if you get hit with a crown and/or a root canal, it can run over $1,000 per tooth! Ouch! That hurts more than the dentist's drill for me! One set of visits to my dentist cost me more than I paid for one of my cars. I'm not making this up!

Why the big sting? The dental insurance that comes with a lot of employee health insurance plans covers only the most basic of dental services — routine cleanings and fillings, mainly. Beyond that, almost nothing is covered.

So here are some suggestions for taking the (ahem) bite out of your dental bills:

If your teeth are in relatively good shape, great! Continue taking care of your teeth, and toothpaste and dental floss may be the only dental insurance you need. Additionally, my dentist recommends getting an electric toothbrush. It does a much better job than a regular toothbrush. If you drink coffee or soda, also drink water so that you can neutralize the acid and rinse away the sugar — these are two things that the bacteria that cause plaque thrive on.

If you have lots of fillings, but aren't in immediate need of a lot of heavy-duty dental work, you can prepare now for the bills when (not if) they come. These are not things that you can usually set up properly if you already have a toothache. Start taking care of your teeth immediately as above, and consider the following:

• Consider an HMO arrangement. You pay into a plan, and this allows you to be treated for a reduced fee at a group of dental providers who are members of the plan. This includes the high-ticket items as well as maintenance items — $10/month or so can save you hundreds of dollars on a crown, and cleanings and routine checkups may be free.
  DentalPlans.com has a number of these kinds of plans, along with a searchable directory of providers.
  If this is an appropriate option for you, do your homework. The listings on the DentalPlans.com website or on other similar websites may not be current. If you find a match for a local dentist with a particular plan (or plans), always call the dentist's office before signing up for treatment (and even before paying the fee for the plan), because the dentist may have dropped that particular plan or may not be taking new patients under that plan. What the dentist is doing now always takes precedence over what the website says. Also make sure that you make it very clear that you are inquiring about an HMO type plan — some companies offer both a traditional insurance plan and an HMO plan, and not all dentists take both.
  One last thing about HMO plans: Even though dentists may still be taking new patients under a particular plan, they may only do so at certain times of the year. So you may need to wait before getting your initial consultation.
• Check to see if there are dental schools in the area. You can get work done very cheaply if you're willing to be a guinea pig. Let a dental student clean or work on your teeth, and you pay very little — mainly cost of materials. Yes, they're students, but they're also getting graded on how well they fix your teeth, so they'll often do a very careful job. Going here isn't as flexible as going to a dentist — there are class schedules to be adhered to, so if they're already “done the chapter on extractions” you may be out of luck.
• If you get nailed with a big bill, a lot of dentists have plans set up whereby you can pay in installments, sometimes without interest as long as you keep up with the payments. (With my recent whopper of a bill, I instead put it all on my Chase PerfectCardâ„¢ so that I got a whopper of a rebate. Do this only if you can pay the bill in full when it's due — otherwise the interest free installments are better.)