Understanding
Understanding
Helping Patients Access Quality Dental Care
If your dental office bills directly to your insurance carrier and does not require you to pay up front for the services your insurance covers, your dentist is providing you with a service called assignment of benefits. We are Calgary NW’s top family dental clinic, book your next appointment now!
As part of our exceptional service to our clients, we provide what’s called an assignment of benefits. This service ensures that our dental office bills directly to your insurance carrier and does not require you to pay upfront for the services your insurance covers. In a non-assignment office, patients must pay the full cost of treatment and complete a dental claim form that the patient can submit to their insurance provider for reimbursement.
Understanding Dental Insurance
In offices that do not provide this service, patients, regardless of their insurance status, are required to pay for their dental treatment at the time of the appointment. Patients are then left to pursue their insurance companies for reimbursement personally.
It is estimated that no more than 30% of dental offices today provide assignment services. The following is an abbreviated list of the reasons why most dentists do not provide assignment services.
Dental offices who provide this service are doing so as a courtesy to their patients to make dental services more accessible. They are making it possible for you to have your dental work done and not be out of pocket for the expenses. They are not required by any provincial or federal legislation to do so and yet they will wait sometimes months for payment on the patient’s behalf.
Questions? Call (403) 210-5050The provider ends up waiting usually weeks or months for payments to arrive from the insuring agency.
In order to cope with the large amount of paperwork required to submit and follow up on insurance claims, offices providing assignment must staff considerably more employees than those offices that don’t provide assignment services.
Once a payment is made to the provider, if any treatment was denied due to exclusions or limitations in the patients insurance plan, there will be a balance owing. In this circumstance the provider now has the responsibility of tracking down the patient for the rest of the payment; sometimes meeting with distrust and hostility on the part of the patient.
Get The Care You Need Today
The health of your teeth and gums is connected to your overall well-being. Damaged teeth and a misaligned bite can lower our confidence when interacting with others while a severe toothache can become a constraint in our day. These are just two examples of how oral health can impact our quality of life.
At Brentwood Village Dental Clinic, we recognize that the costs associated with treatment can be stressful for some families and paying the full bill upfront can be a financial constraint. We believe that dental care should be accessible for everyone, which is why we strive to make your experience as smoothas possible, including the payment and claims process.
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