At some point in life, we all experience dental problems like crooked teeth, bad breath, and gingivitis. As a result, millions of work hours are lost when employees are forced to make unplanned dental visits due to painful conditions that affect productivity. However, the good news is that you can provide your staff with a dental group plan that helps your company attract and retain employees.
The insurance also helps them maintain good oral health while at the same time eliminating disease-related absenteeism. This can be made a reality with a high-quality dental plan that offers benefits to both the employees and employers. Read on to learn how to get a quality dental plan for your employees.
Understand the Needs of Employees
First and foremost, it is vital to understand the needs of your employees and the company so that you choose the right dental plan. You should gather information from the employees to get insight into their oral needs to get the best benefits for them. Group dental policies are usually designed to accommodate the workers with higher dental needs so that they can access the services at an affordable cost. Some dental plans do not include specialist services like orthodontics, so you must choose wisely.
Types of Group Dental Insurance Plans
There are several options when it comes to choosing group dental insurance that can help you find the right product. For a small business, you can offer more than one plan from the following:
- Dental Preferred Provider Organization (DPPOs)- are flexible in that members are allowed to choose their preferred dentists and specialists. Premiums are higher but they can be reduced if members choose a dentist from their network.
- Dental Health Maintenance Organizations (DHMOs)- The policy is cheaper than the DPPO because it has strict restrictions for members to stay within networks. You choose a dentist from the pre-approved list in the network, and all referrals come from the primary dentists.
- Indemnity Plan (Fee-for-service)- you pay in advance to the dentist for services then you are reimbursed later by the insurance company
- Dental Savings Plans (non-insurance products)- though not a dental insurance product, members get reduced fees for dental services in exchange for minimum annual fees.
Monthly Premiums
You must check the cost of the insurance plan per month. In most cases, the company contributes 50% and the employee covers the remaining 50%. In other words, if the total cost of a dental plan per each individual is $20, the employer will contribute $10. Ordinary dental policies do not offer orthodontic services like braces, which can be costly. Things like braces are crucial since they prevent the development of various conditions that can affect the teeth and gums.
What Do you Get From Group Dental Insurance?
When choosing a group policy, you should check the treatments it covers. Depending on the type of group insurance, what you should know is that the employees need to have access to basic services that can safeguard their oral health. For instance, preventive care like regular checkups and free cleanings are vital to ensure that the employees can maintain better oral health. However, not all dental insurance policies include orthodontics, so check if your group plan covers that.
Orthodontic insurance helps to cover things like braces and tooth straightening that help to prevent diseases in the long run. When teeth are crooked and crowded, it is difficult to clean between them and that can lead to numerous dental problems. You must check if the group insurance plan offers quality coverage that provides maximum benefits and major procedures to the employees.
Wide Selection of Service Providers
When choosing a group dental plan, you need to widen your net so that you can check if it is accepted by dentists and other dental specialists in different places across the country. It defies logic to choose a plan whereby the employees will end up failing to get the services they want in their respective areas. Therefore, you need to check the coverage of the orthodontist around the area where your business is operating to make life easy for the employees should they require dental services. Other dental insurance companies restrict the members to primary dentists listed in their networks. However, a larger network, though costly, is essential since it gives the workers access to quality services.
Oral health affects our wellbeing in many ways. Conditions like crooked teeth, bad breath, and inflamed gums often require the attention of an expert dentist. However, the cost of treatment is one of the major challenges that people face when they need dental care. A dental plan for your employees can go a long way in solving different problems they can often face when seeking medication for oral health problems.