Save money by reducing your dental expenses.

No matter what your income is, budgeting is a vital skill that can help you stay on track with your bills and grow a healthy savings you can use for emergencies or even a fun trip. When you build your budget, it’s a good idea to plan for your family’s dental care expenses, but it’s also wise to find ways to reduce these expenses as much as possible; it’s well known that medical expenses, including those from dentistry, can build up if you end up needing unexpected treatments, so taking steps to reduce these costs before they appear can save you a lot of money in the long term.

Whether you’re living on a shoestring budget or have a little extra wiggle room, it’s always better to spend less and save more, so here are a few ways you can budget for your entire family’s dental care.

Dental Insurance

Getting dental insurance is a very common way to drastically reduce costs at your dental office. When you have dental insurance, you pay a small monthly fee to ensure your entire family gets coverage for a wide range of treatments. Exactly what treatments your insurance covers and what percentage they cover depends on your individual plan, but insurance companies provide you with options. This means you can shop around for a plan that meets your family’s needs, as well as your budget.

Basic dental insurance covers the full cost of two preventive appointments every year for each of your family members, as well as a yearly X-ray, and it drastically reduces the cost for treatments like fillings, crowns, and sometimes sealants for baby teeth. Dental insurance will also help pay for the cost of more expensive but necessary treatments like braces and will often help with the cost of anesthesia if you need it for a dental treatment. It won’t cover every treatment out there, such as cosmetic procedures or dental implants, but it saves you a lot of money on the treatments you’re most likely to need.

Dental Memberships

Dental memberships are an alternative to dental insurance, and they work like a mix between a wholesale club membership and insurance. You pay a set membership fee at the beginning of the year in exchange for drastic savings on different dental treatments, from regular preventive appointments to fillings, dental crowns, implants, and even braces. Like insurance, there are a wide range of dental membership plans to choose from, so you can choose a plan and a price point that fits your family’s needs. Some dental memberships even reduce the cost of cosmetic treatments, which most dental insurance companies don’t cover at all. How much your dental membership will cost each year depends upon the size of your family and the type of plan you choose, but these plans can save you a good chunk of change every year.

CareCredit

This is a credit card that’s specifically designed to help patients pay for medical expenses, including dental bills, by allowing them to pay for treatments in small, manageable installments that fit their budget. This saves you from having to pay for bigger, more expensive treatments out of pocket all at once, which can be rough on any budget, especially when you weren’t planning on needing a treatment. Plus, if you pay off your bill within a certain amount of time, you won’t have to pay any interest at all. To avoid putting too much money on the credit card, it’s best to use CareCredit alongside an insurance plan or dental membership, but it can help ensure you’re able to get the treatment you need when you need it.

Oral Hygiene at Home

Another factor that can reduce your dental costs is simply taking care of your oral hygiene at home. Make sure your whole family invests time in brushing their teeth for two minutes twice a day, as well as flossing and using mouthwash at least once a day. Each of these steps cleans your teeth in ways the other methods can’t, so they’re all important for your oral health, even when you don’t see it. Taking care of your oral health prevents expenses in the form of larger treatments for cavities or gum disease.

It also prevents TMJ issues, which can cause a wide range of symptoms that aren’t isolated to your jaw, and helps your entire body stay healthier. There’s a clear link between periodontitis and illnesses, like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, the latter of which is harder to control when you’re suffering from gum disease. As a result, simply taking care of your oral health at home can reduce your costs at the dentist, as well as your medical bills overall, by keeping your entire body healthier for longer.

Regular Appointments

For the same reason, you should ensure your entire family makes it to our Waldorf, MD, or Frederick pediatric dentistry office for a preventive appointment every six months. These regular appointments are covered under dental insurance and dental membership plans alike, so they should cost you little to nothing. Despite the low cost, they give back exponentially, as these appointments are a vital part of ensuring your dentist catches oral health issues early before they become major issues that require expensive treatments. Going to your regular appointment can mean the difference between needing a small filling and needing a root canal or tooth extraction down the road.

Additionally, it’s important that your entire family goes to their appointments, as the oral bacteria that cause cavities and gum disease are contagious; if you skip your own dental appointments, your poor oral health can negatively impact the oral health of your children. This is especially true if your children are younger and still have their baby teeth since their thinner layer of protective enamel makes them more vulnerable to decay than adult teeth. Cavities can form and spread quickly on baby teeth, so staying on track with dentistry for children is extremely important. It’s simply healthier and more cost-effective to ensure everyone in your family visits the dentist regularly.

Even small savings can make a surprisingly large difference in your monthly budget, and seemingly simple methods, like committing to good oral hygiene, can translate to huge savings over time. When you visit your dentist in Waldorf, MD, regularly and use several of these cost-saving methods together, you can ensure you have the health and resources you need to fully enjoy the future!