My goal for having CC paid off next month is smashed by my dentist!

[pat fan]

I was going to pay my CC off next month cheer2 but just got a bill from my dentist for $2200! I was told, before the work was done, that I would have to pay $200, so I had the work done. Now I get a bill for $2200 and it comes down to the insurance co. quote was "off" because they hadn't processed another bill, so I had less $$ to work with than they thought. Now, I called the ins. co. once to confirm the quote and the dentist 3 times to confirm before I had the work done, and the dentist called twice to confirm with the ins. co. What can I do, they did the work and deserve to be paid. So now I have to decide if I put it on my CC or do a credit plan through a company the dentist works with. They are interest free if paid in 18 months, so I think I'll do that, but I was hoping to be CC payment free for once in my life. Thanks for letting me vent....

 

[SandrA9810]

The care credit card is only good for medical expenses, but most offices work with that card to offer various amounts of time for free interest.

I got screwed by the dentist once. They had to do a certain procedure for a filling, which is normally done with a root canal. Since a root canal wasn't done, the insurance company wouldn't cover the filling, which added like 600$ to the total.

 

[ceecee]

Everyone needs to know their maximums on their dental plans. It's hard for a dental office to keep track of 1000's of patients, of which many see specialists and that also uses the yearly max fast.
Care Credit is an excellent option and interest free as long as you don't miss a payment. So you can still pay off your regular CC. You can only use this for medical, dental, vet and others who participate.

 

[pat fan]

Everyone needs to know their maximums on their dental plans.

I do, or thought I did. One glitch was my HR rep told me I had $2000 coverage when I in fact had $1500, so there's $500 of it. My DH and I both have dental ins. so to me, I thought I had enough. My mistake was I had work done in Jan. '10 that I thought was done in late '09 (a root canal at a different office, mine doesn't do them). The ins. took so long processing that claim that it never showed up on any of the estimates or phone calls, hence we all thought I had all my $$ available.

I do plan to still pay off the CC, but to me, the Care Credit is the same thing. I was hoping to be able to start saving that $$.

 

[Cindy B]

Do you have a FSA? This would be an allowable expense.. especially if the work was done prior to today 12/31

 

[pat fan]

Do you have a FSA?

No.
If we do know about an expense coming up (like this) we save for what we need to pay OOP, so I made sure I had the $200 I was told I needed. That's what makes me so crazy. This wasn't an emergency or anything, I could have put it off til 2011 or split the stuff between two years. I am so careful about these kinds of things, just makes me so angry that I failed to get the dates right for the first procedure and then the ins. co was so slow in processing the claim that everything got messed up.

 

[Swimalie]

Since you are having to pay for this now, if you are able to ay cash (not put it on credit) ask for a cash discount from your dentist. My dental insurance is horrible (covers $17 of a cleaning, no root canals, $30 of a filling, $1000 per year maximum) so if I pay cash, I get a 10% discount. It's worth asking from your dentist.

 

[pat fan]

Since you are having to pay for this now, if you are able to ay cash (not put it on credit) ask for a cash discount from your dentist. My dental insurance is horrible (covers $17 of a cleaning, no root canals, $30 of a filling, $1000 per year maximum) so if I pay cash, I get a 10% discount. It's worth asking from your dentist.

They did offer 5% off if I paid it in full by Jan. 1, but #1 it would have had to go on my CC and I would have paid more than the 5% in interest by the time I paid it off, and #2, if I had $2 grand in cash to pay it off just sitting around I wouldn't be so upset about this.