Options for Financing Dental Care

Nobody ever said dental care was cheap. When you do not have insurance, dental emergency care can literally break your budget. While this is a financial reality, the fact is, avoiding going to the dentist can cost you significantly more than biting off the cost of bi-annual checkups and maintenance visits. These preventive visits will help keep your oral health in check as well as allow the dentist to possibly spot problems early on before they become a true emergency.

How to Finance Dental Care without Dental Insurance

If you are looking for ways to help finance dental care, be it maintenance visits or emergency care, there are several options to explore if you do not have insurance:

• Credit Cards – this is an ugly phrase for many of you, especially if you do not have a card with a low rate. Today, companies are charging as much as 29.9 percent interest on purchases. Interest rates such as this can quickly double or even triple the cost of a dental visit if you are not able to pay off the balance right away. This may be an option for a true emergency, but is not likely something you want to use on a regular basis.
• Healthcare Installment Loans or Plans – in some cases, institutions will allow you to “borrow” the money you need for your dental care. Some will treat it like a lay away plan and not charge you interest, whereas as other facilities will treat it like a loan and charge a variable or adjustable rate on the principal. This is definitely an option, but one you need to research and understand before using.
• Home Equity Loans or Lines of Credit – this is something you are probably already familiar with if you are a homeowner. The major benefit of this type of loan is the interest rate is extremely low. However, the reason the interest rate is so low is that the loan or line of credit is guaranteed against the equity in your home. In other words, default on the loan and you stand to lose your home.
• Alternative Dental Plans – the last, and most attractive option, is to subscribe to an alternative dental plan , such as Wellness Dental Plan. If you have liquid cash, it can be used on its own to offset regular and emergency dental care. Or, at the very least, will enable you to finance less of the actual costs of your dental care. While there is a yearly cost, that cost is more than offset by the savings received on annual checkups and treatments.

For more information about alternative dental plans, please click here.

*Photo Courtesy of Tax Credits via Creative Commons License