Yes! You can definitely continue to use your dental benefits when receiving treatment at our office. We remain committed to helping you obtain the maximum benefit allowed by your dental insurance plan as well as making it as easy as possible for you to utilize your dental benefits. Additionally, we will continue submitting your insurance claims as we have previously. The main difference is that the check from your insurance company will now come directly to you. This means you’ll be expected to pay us at the time of service and your insurance company will reimburse you in the weeks that follow.

For patients using Blue Cross & Blue Shield plans, this change will be effective on October 1st, 2024.

For patients using Delta Dental plans, this change will be effective on January 1st, 2025.

This change is occurring because we want to maintain our high standard of care and practice dentistry in the way that we believe it should be done without being influenced by insurance companies or other third parties.

Our goal in making this change is to remain independent and avoid becoming a commercially owned dental practice (such as Aspen Dental). Additionally, we believe in being fairly compensated for our work and we want to ensure that our services are valued appropriately.

A dental insurance write-off is the portion of a dentist’s fee that the dentist agrees not to collect because of contractual obligations with the insurance company. For example, if you received dental treatment and were charged $100 for the procedure, your dental insurance company might demand a 20% write-off from the treating dentist. In this case, the total amount collected by the dentist from both you and your insurance company would only be $80.

Unlike every other dental insurance company, Delta Dental and BCBS refuse to send the benefit check directly to us unless we agree to write-off some portion of our fee. (It’s worth noting here that the actual amount of each write-off is solely up to the insurance company and it changes from day to day. Additionally, the amounts of these write-offs are not disclosed to us until AFTER we agree to accept the write-offs.)

You will likely receive your check from the insurance company within 2 to 4 weeks after receiving treatment. Typically, insurance companies process and send payments to patients more quickly than they do to healthcare providers.

Probably not. But, if you’re like most patients, your dental insurance wasn’t paying 100% of your treatment costs in the past either. Additionally, the amount of a dental benefit check will vary drastically between insurance plans even within the same insurance company. The best way to determine how your insurance company might reimburse you is to contact them directly. You’ll want to determine what your benefits are when being treated by a “non-participating” or “out-of-network” provider.

In a typical scenario involving a dental insurance claim, we expect that you’d receive your benefit check approximately 2 to 4 weeks after treatment. Therefore, if you find yourself with this concern, we recommend you pay for your treatment using credit (i.e. personal credit card, or Care Credit, etc.) and simply pay your creditor when you receive your benefit check.

The way that most dental practices respond to the effects of taking large write-offs is through prioritizing quantity over quality and by steering patients toward more expensive treatment options. In contrast, we are dedicated to providing high quality dental care as well as recommending only that which is in the best interest of the patient.

Absolutely not. The reason for the change in our relationship with your insurance company is precisely so that we do not have to change how we provide treatment. We will continue to provide our high standard of care and prioritize our patients’ health.