Medical Insurance and Dental Implants

I recently had to replace all my upper teeth with a denture. The plate is making me gag. I worried about this before getting the dentures because I knew I had a strong gag reflex. I haven’t been able to wear them and now just have no teeth on my top arch. Will medical insurance cover me getting implant dentures because I can’t eat without them?

Steve

Dear Steve,

Implant overdentures illustration
Implant overdentures

I’m sorry you are going through this. Patients with strong gag reflexes often have trouble with dentures. While getting implant overdentures will be a fantastic solution for you, medical insurance will not cover it. Yes, it affects your health to not have teeth. Despite that, medical insurance policies generally have a clause excluding all dental work.

Some dental policies will pay a percentage for dental implants, but it varies from policy to policy. Additionally, if you are thinking of getting dental insurance specifically to get the implants, you need to be aware that almost all policies have a waiting period before any major work can be done.

By now you’re probably wondering if you are destined to live with a liquid diet for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, many dentists went into their field because they are compassionate and want to help people. There are affordable dentists out there who would be willing to work with you on payments in the situation you find yourself in. Some of them have in-house payment plans. Others will work through Care Credit, which is essentially a medical credit card.

Another good thing is because dental implants are placed in two stages, you only pay for half at a time. The first part is for the surgery. Then you have a healing time while your bone integrates with the implants. After that, you’d make the second half of the payment for the denture that will be anchored to the implants.

I’m certain you’ll find someone in your area willing to help.

This blog is brought to you by Baton Rouge Dentist Dr. Steven Collins.