This is my first time having dental insurance through my job so everything is fairly new to me. been having a tooth ache for about two weeks and the pain got worse to the point i made myself go to the dentist. So i go to a dental office in a memorial and it turns out i need a root canal done to save my tooth! Also a couple of small fillings are needed. When i get the paperwork on how much i need to pay i was surprised to see how expensive it was. With my insurance i get a free exam every two months but i no longer want to go to this dentist cause its way too much. What can i do? can i just go to another dentist and have them transfer the paperwork? should i just pay for another exam somewhere else?is an exam even expensive? what do you guys think my options are and do yall know any cheep safe Dentsit in west Houston? Thanks!
I've just had a root canal done last month (from an endodontist) and the price was insane. If you have already visited a dentist in your insurer's network, I doubted you can find a better price elsewhere. YOu can probably go to another dentist and get an estimate, but I suspected the other dentist might have to examine your teeth all over agian and that might cost money.
Does ANYONE have a good dental plan through insurance? Ours through Blue Cross Blue Shield is friggin' horrible.
GET A SECOND EXAM. Through personal experience I've found that a lot of these dentists are in cahoots. Ask around your office and see who has a good dentist and go to them. A good dentist is like a good, honest mechanic- once you find one, hang on to them. Side note- dental plans aren't worth a crap unless you can budget them out year to year. For example- my wife had to have all four wisdom teeth out. We didn't have dental last year, but I looked at the plan, and after our copay and the dental premiums, I came out ahead $600 with dental instead of without. It doesn't pay to just 'have' dental insurance because most of the time you will just use the 'free' exam and cleaning, which costs you about the same in premiums as it would out of pocket.
You might have tried this already, but sometimes your regular health insurance company will cover some of the cost of some dental procedures. I have a delta dental plan and when I needed to have my wisdom teeth removed, my BCBS covered almost all of the cost.
How do you do that? Did you just give the dentist your BCBC insurance card. and I have another question not pertaining to this but can someone tell me why my spell checker is not working. sorry for the derailment.thx
Dental work is expensive. A root canal is a complex procedure and take a lot of time. What tooth is it?
Tooth number 15 which is upper left in the back. They charge 980.00 for the root canal and with my insurance i pay 302.00. Thats just the root canal plus 150.00 is what they charge for the medication. Isnt 980.00 expensive? i need a cheap dentist!
general dentist.... Memorial Dentist. I also need a filling beside that tooth and they charge 310.00 without insurance. High?
the teeth towards the back are usually a lot more time consuming and a lot harder. thats why its so expensive to the a root canal there
I had one done about 20 years ago; seems like the cost was some 7-800 bucks. Have you looked into local dental schools? I don't think they take insurance but they are deeply discounted and it may end up costing you less out of pocket.
you can try ut dental in the med center but i would not with a molar root canal unless endo residents are doing it...i dont know if they have an endo residency though
I read that you can get dental work done really cheap by advanced dental students. It is pretty safe, b/c the supervisors are sitting right next to the dental student. Find a local dental school, and call them up.