What is the difference between a Dental Plan and Dental Insurance?

We received this one email from Samantha R. down in Houston, Texas this morning at 5:09 am.

While we have received tons of similar questions, we decided to answer this one for a laugh.

“Hello there BigBird!

Please, if you could write me back asap, this is urgent! I woke up early this morning to make it to my dentist appointment on time for the awful hour of 6am (I’m usually going to bed around then!) and realized I have a slight problem!

My full time employer [blanked for privacy purposes] provides me with a Dental Plan. I was reading an email I got from my dentist just now.. and it says I have to bring in everything related to my Dental INSURANCE to avoid any ‘extra costs incurred by’ me! Eeeeek!

Does this mean I’m going to have to pay out of my own pocket to go to the dentist? I thought I was ‘fully covered’?

Thanks in advance!

-Samantha”

We shot this back at 5:25am, hopefully before she left? Or maybe she used her mobile?

“Good morning Samantha!

I’m sorry to inform you, but you’ll be paying for your trip to the dentist either way I’m afraid. Initially that is

Most every dental insurance plan I’ve ever heard of first requires you to pay for your visit using your own money. Your insurance company will then decide whether or not and for how much of the dentist’s bill to reimburse you for.

If you’re ‘fully covered’ as you said (and I’d ask to be sure, most dental plans these days are not!) then you’re probably only fully covered up to a certain dollar amount depending on each possible cost.

Basically if you decided to have your teeth cleaned down in Beverly Hills at the bargain price of $4,000 USD then you would probably only be ‘fully covered’ for about $200 of that cost - so watch out!

DENTAL INSURANCE = DENTAL PLAN

Oh, and dental insurance is synonymous with the term dental plan. So don’t worry, you’re OK Samantha!”

There you have it. A dental insurance plan can be called by various different names.