Denplan

globalds

I hope this is the right place for this post.

I pay about £15.00 a month into Denplan..An insurance for dental treatment .
I was wondering if there is a better way to pay for my dental treatment .

I don't think my teeth are bad ..I only seem to have a hygene visit after my check up .Are there any other dental insurance companies out there that any one else could recomend ?

Toothsmith

Denplan isn't an 'insurance'.

It's an agreement between you and your dentist that for £15 a month (in your case), he/she will look after your teeth.

Should you ever change dentist, that agreement will be terminated, and a different one taken out with a different dentist that may or may not cost you the same amount. There is no 'pot of money' that can be used at a diferent dental practice should you choose to change.

So - if you move house, to a different area, but forget to stop your Denplan payment, and then, say a year later get round to organising a new dentist, where it's found you need a couple of fillings - your Denplan will not cover that, and you have to go back to the dentist you've been paying in order to get the work done.

This is the worst of the disadvantages of denplan.

The advantages are that so long as you attend regularly for your appointments, any necessary work is covered, and there are no 'limits' on treatment. Also, there is an insurance component of Denplan which will pay out if your teeth are badly damaged in an accident. There is an optional 'top-up' to this insurance which will even pay for implants should your teeth be lost in an accident (If you don't have the top up, the insurance wil just cover bridges to replace lost teeth.)

The insurance component also gives you access to a helpline, and pays any costs involved in finding a dentist and getting emergency treatment if you're away from home.


Switching to an insurance based product would mean that you would then be responsible for paying the dentist his fees, and then sending off a form to claim them back from the insurance company. Bear in mind the dentist may charge you if he/she has to fill out any part of the form (As they can be a right pain sometimes!) and that fee cannot be claimed back.

Also, there will very likely be treatment or cost limits. Would you be happy to take that risk? If you should suffer an accident that damages your teeth, things can get very expensive very quickly.

From the dentist's point of view it's probably neither here nor there. So long as you carry on attending regularly and pay your bills, he probably won't mind whether you're on Denplan or not. Be aware though that there are one or two practices around who insist on all their patients being on Denplan (Or whatever scheme that particular practice favours) It does make administration of the practice much simpler if all the patients are on the same scheme.

The first thing to do would be to ask at your practice if they mind what cover you have, and then check into the private charges to make sure you can afford them and that it wouldn't dent your cash-flow too badly if you had to pay up, and then wait a few weeks for your claim to be processed by your chosen insurance company.

ipri

My Mother in law is a member of denplan..has been for over 20 years...very litltle work done..never missed an appt.....now being asked to leave £40 cheque at surgery to " cover " any future missed appt.

Is this legal/ethical..obviously this covers other people who fail to attend?? ian

lisyloo

Hi ipri,

I think what they are saying is that they will only cash the cheque if she doesn't bother turning up.
Clearly they have got fed up with people not phoning to cancel and are taking action.

If she isn't happy she should discuss it with them but it sounds to me like they are fed up to the back teeth (pun intended) of "no shows".

Toothsmith

ipri wrote: »

My Mother in law is a member of denplan..has been for over 20 years...very litltle work done..never missed an appt.....now being asked to leave £40 cheque at surgery to " cover " any future missed appt.

Is this legal/ethical..obviously this covers other people who fail to attend?? ian

Has she missed appointments? Or does the dentist do this to all patients?

If she has a habit of missing, I'd say it was fair enough.

luctom

Never missed appt...all patients need to leave cheque/card details...Doesnt Dentist get payment from Denplan anyway..??can he legally ask for this? Ian

lisyloo

If the dentist is private he can do what he/she wants.

They are almost certainly doing this because they feel they have to because of "no shows".
It will be difficult for them to show discretion because if they do a special deal for your mother then they will have to do it for other patients.

I sugests she talks to them and discusses it with them and expresses that she isn't happy about it.

If they don't budge then she needs to decide whether to continue of find another dentist.

Yes they do get paid by denplan but if people don't show (and don't phone) then they have to repeat the appointment so they have to do 2 appointments when they could have done 1.

Obviously there will be occasions when someone gets sick/ drops dead/ gets run over by a bus, but in MOST situations people can phone and allow them to use the appointment. Most people have mobile phones these days so it's not that had.

If she is happy with the service then my advice would be to give them the cheque (afterall they aren't going to cash it).
Personally I would want re-assurance that if the situation was unavoidable e.g. trapped in a car after a car crash, that they wouldn't charge.
It's probably meant to be for inconsiderate people that can't be bothered to phone.

If she's not happy then she needs to vote with her feet, but there is nothing illegal about this to my knowledge.

So her choices are
1) put up with it
2) go elsewhere
3) try to persuade them to accept a different scheme (constructive ideas would be a plus here rather than just going in moaning).

Toothsmith

What she said!

It's no different to hotels taking credit card details on check in, cinemas taking the fee when you book, or airlines taking money for your ticket, but taking off on time if you're not there!

So long as she doesn't miss an appointment for no good reason, it'll only ever be a bit of paper that's never used.