Transitioning to the clinic portion of dental school comes with a lot of changes. Navigating the intricacies of dental insurance shouldn’t be one that you worry about. Whether your patient has private dental insurance or a public plan through Medicaid, there is some basic terminology that is universal. Being able to speak the language of dental insurance will help you better communicate with your patient and get through the world of clinic. In addition, it’ll help you communicate with insurance companies after dental school and become an active participant in the legislative conversation regarding health insurance. Here is a list of the top five dental insurance terms you should know before entering clinic.
As dental students, we tend to focus on gaining as much clinical experience and knowledge as we possibly can during our dental school years. We try our best to avoid the confusing world of insurance, not thinking about the eventual contracts we will likely sign with dental insurance companies, or “third party payers”. Within these written agreements are a number of possible stipulations and common practices that will affect the way we run our practice and treat our patients.
For the past five years low-income adults in California have been without public
It is 2014 and the inaugural year of the Affordable Care Act implementation. Curious if dentistry has etched (primed and bonded) its way into ACA? I can tell you, it has. The watchword in regards to our field is “prevention”—detailed in the 21 oral health provisions of ACA. If you’ve avoided the daunting task of reading the ACA, you may have a few questions. Let me decode those for you here…