Health insurance doesn't normally cover dental work. Dental plans are generally a separate offering, and typically aren't a good deal for younger people who take decent care of their teeth. Even Medicare doesn't pay for dental work.
Indeed. I avoided dental work a while back when I didn't have dental insurance. Instead of getting a cavity filled for $150, I ended up needing a $1000 root canal. But even then, not that expensive. Dental procedures are generally simpler than medical procedures, and cost less as a result.
(Getting three wisdom teeth removed did not appear to cost that much either, but my insurance paid for that.)
What bothers me is that many of the so-called dental "insurance" plans I've seen in the U.S. have quite low caps. Essentially, they work out more as a kind of "payment plan" against average expenses when measured over multiple years.
I'd rather pay for those, myself, but have "real" dental insurance for the quite expensive, unexpected stuff. Infections. Complications from non-routine extractions (particularly notable with some wisdom tooth extractions). Etc. Things where a $1000 or $2500 cap may hardly make a dent in the final expense.
When I was looking at individual dental plans (actually, "group plans" from the ACM or IEEE), it seemed to me that it was basically the cost of two dental visits amortized out over 12 months, with a small discount on other procedures.
With a "real" group plan, the only things I've had to pay was a $300 deductible on the wisdom teeth removal and $25 for a flouride treatment that insurance doesn't cover. (Presumably because most adults don't have braces.)
