Best way to pay out of pocket dental expenses?

[TwoMisfits]

I would see if your dental office offers CareCredit, interest free for 6-36 mos depending on how they set it up and the amount. GEHA should cover 50% of the implant cost if they cover implants at all. We use CC for a lot of our patients, the only downside is if you skip a payment they hit you with 24.9% or some outrageous amount. If it's a single tooth, it may be cheaper to get a bridge. Also ask for the success rate for replacing an implant there may not be enough bone structure to hold it, then you get into bone graph, etc. and lots of $$$$$$.

This actually just happened to my spouse. We thankfully paid $400 out of pocket to get an uncovered jaw scan that showed my spouse's implant would be too close to his nasal cavity (and wouldn't have enough jaw bone) and so they would need to do all sorts of 4-$-digit "prep" work to even get to the implant phase (without giving him longterm possible nasal issues)...and even then, it had a good chance of failing and still giving him the nasal cavity issues. Right now, my spouse has decided to wait for his next appointment with his regular dentist to see if they think a. this still needs to have a fix and b/ what fix they would now recommend b/c the implant is a non-starter. My suggestion is to wait til he wrecks one of the two teeth on either side and then do the bridge (b/c there's no sense ruining 2 good teeth to do it now), but will see what the dentist says in a few months...