Whatever treatment you are interested in, whether that be implants, dentures, fillings, crowns, extractions… cost certainly will be a factor in the choice you make. But let me be perfectly clear, no conscientious wholistic dentist can ever quote you an honest fee before learning a little or a lot more about your current dental health and your personal dental and health goals. Please excuse my brief rant here, but quality dental care is not a commodity. Buying a crown is not like buying a microwave. Any given microwave model should be the same no matter what store you get it from, so price shopping for one of those can be fairly straight forward. Dental crowns, implants, and dentures, on the other hand, are services not commodities. Each one is as unique as the person it is designed for. A better analogy would be building or remodeling a house. How much would that cost? Well that depends…! So, if you are looking for a dentist that will treat you as an individual, that will customize your dental care to best meet your own personal needs, interests, and circumstances, PLEASE UNDERSTAND that the cost question cannot be honestly answered without a preliminary comprehensive examination and personal consultation. That’s just the facts of good quality dental care. OK, I’m done ranting. With all that being said, here’s the deal at our office – WE GUARANTEE THE BEST FEES FOR EQUAL SERVICE. As I’ve said before, we don’t do “cheap,” but we are extremely fair with great.

With or without insurance, in or out of network, everyone ends up with some amount of out-of-pocket expense. To help with that, we have put together a great list of options. Here they are –

• Prepayment: This is our favorite and should be yours too. By pre-paying for your entire treatment plan in advance, we are able to offer you the most efficient scheduling. This saves both of us time, and thus allows us to reduce your fees accordingly. It also saves on finance expenses which further reduces the amount you end up paying. Win-win win-win-win! NOTE: Pre-payment means just that; see below for pay-as-you-go.

• Treatment phasing: With all the same advantages as the first option, by breaking your treatment plan into affordable but still efficient steps or phases, and paying for each phase in advance, you are still able to get the top-of-the-line results you are looking for without breaking the bank!

• Third party financing: On the other hand, if you want to get it all done quickly but also need to make payments, we also offer financing through two great companies. The terms vary from 0% interest to regular credit card rates. If you’d like to explore this option, just let us know and we’ll be glad to help you get the best deal possible.

• Pay-as-you-go: Obviously paying at each appointment is another way to go. You don’t get the same savings as with the other plans, but for some this still makes the most sense. For any appointment of $1,000 or more, we will need 40% down though to hold that time.

• Barter: Sometimes barter is a great option for both of us. If you have something to barter that I personally want, I can give you full retail value for it. If on the other hand it is something that I am going to have to resell, we will have to talk about wholesale value instead. We have a list here at the office of what I’m looking for if you are interested in pursuing this option.

GO TO PAYMENT PREQUALIFICATION

The quick answer is YES; we are happy to take money from anyone who wants to give it to us! Not only that, but we are also happy to help with filling out your claim forms and deciphering your pretreatment estimates (predeterminations). This includes MEDICAL as well as DENTAL insurance – another thing that makes us totally unique:) However, if your question really is: are we members of your PPO (preferred provider organization/network)? Then the answer is  no.

Here’s why –

1. The more accurate description of a PPO is Discounted Fee Trust-Monopoly (DFTM). These are groups of dentists who have agreed to reduce their fees in return for “insurance” companies referring their clients to them. Although there are legal loopholes that allow this type of fee manipulation and market monopolization to exist today, these trusts are morally no different than the ones my favorite trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt went after back in his day!

2. I put insurance in quotes above because that really is not what they provide. All they really do is hold your money and charge you a fee for doing so. You see, the idea behind real insurance is that many people contribute a little money to hold in reserve for some event that rarely happens. For example, not very many homes burn down, so if everybody pays in a little bit there is plenty of money to help when someone’s house does burn down. The problem with dental care is that sooner or later practically everyone needs it, so there is really no savings over the long run. That’s why I always recommend putting your money in a Health Savings Account instead; you’ll be money ahead if you do!

3. Our standard fees are based on the time, overhead, care and experience needed for a particular service in our office, not a network average. With careful planning and bundling of services, this means that our fees often end up being less than for similar care at a “network” office. In addition, we are a non-profit dental practice running on a sliding-fee-scale and need to preserve our freedom to customize our fees on an individual as-needed basis. DFTM membership would severely hinder that.

4. We offer comprehensive whole-health (wholistic) dental care which often involves procedures and materials that are restricted, unreimbursed, or even forbidden by DFTM’s. We strongly believe those decisions should be yours alone without any 3rd party interference – corporate or governmental!

But what if you are stuck, your employer has paid into the plan, and you don’t want to throw that money away? First, realize that most DFTM’s will pay for out-of-network dental care; just not as much. And with the fee customization I just referred to, your out-of-pocket costs often actually end up still being less here than they would have been if we were “in network”! As good as that is, it gets even better though.

Way better and way more affordable than dental insurance, the Smile Miracles Concierge Dental Health Plan just may be what you have been looking for! Do you remember a time long ago when doctors and dentists actually had time to get to know you, listened, and cared enough to tailor your treatment to your own personal needs and values? When insurance policies and regulations never entered into the conversation? Well that’s the purpose of our Concierge Dental Plan; to return to that time and place where you the patient are more important than “rat race money”.

• 20% – 100% discounts

• No waiting periods

• No cosmetic exclusions

• Implants and dentures included

• Exclusive concierge access, scheduling, and care

• The only dental plan with Wholistic/integrative whole-health services also included

Compatible with any existing dental insurance, now even people currently “stuck” with “in-network” dentists can save even more! If this sounds good to you (I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t!), give us a call and we’ll get the details right out to you.

Finally if, after exhausting all the above options, you still find yourself coming up short of the funds needed to afford the whole-health dental care you need, we encourage you to apply for a Smile Miracles Project Grant. As you know by now, we are a unique non-profit practice and offer qualified individuals a sliding-fee-scale with no compromise in quality of care. This sliding-fee-scale grant program is based on need as well as funds availability. In addition, recipients are also required to find another charity to volunteer for – thus paying-it-forward and doing their part to promote a kinder and gentler society.

Applications may be downloaded HERE