Orthodontics coverage question

[mamamary]

Hi. Not sure if any of you have been in this situation but....

My son started with orthodontics a few months ago. Well now DH will lose his job early next year. He may even choose to leave his co. early and start a new job as soon as a month from now. Anyway, my ques is - once you start with a certain insurance (I have Aetna) will the new insurance at the new job continue where we left off? I hope my question makes sense.

Thanks.

 

[Barb D]

I would have your husband ask HR at the new employer.

We pre-paid for our kids' braces, and got reimbursed right away. Any way you could finish paying before your DH leaves his current employer, and just get it out of the way?

 

[mamamary]

I would have your husband ask HR at the new employer.

We pre-paid for our kids' braces, and got reimbursed right away. Any way you could finish paying before your DH leaves his current employer, and just get it out of the way?

Hmmmm - not sure if I can prepay (well I know I could prepay my portion). I know with Aetna they only pay the Orthodontic office a set amount every 3 months. I believe that it has to do with people using Aetna for braces and then getting rid of Aetna so they (meaning Aetna) prolong the payment process.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

DH's company has 3 choices for dental. I know that one of them has a notation that you MUST choose the "enhanced" plan for ongoing orthodontic treatment if you want the orthodontics covered. I also know that our current plan (Cigna) paid DS's orthodontics in chunks. We would get statements showing how much we had paid and how much Cigna had paid. When his braces came off they told us there was one insurance payment still pending, and if Cigna didn't pay we would be responsible for that total (under $200, which I am assuming they paid). I'm not sure what would have happened if we had dropped our insurance in the middle of treatment.

Good luck figuring it out!

 

[5Slays]

Hi. Not sure if any of you have been in this situation but....

My son started with orthodontics a few months ago. Well now DH will lose his job early next year. He may even choose to leave his co. early and start a new job as soon as a month from now. Anyway, my ques is - once you start with a certain insurance (I have Aetna) will the new insurance at the new job continue where we left off? I hope my question makes sense.

Thanks.

We had a similar situation I believe that it depends on the limits that are set. What happened with us is that our old insurance had already paid it's lifetime max on ortho. So when we got the new insurance, it did not kick in with ortho until after a year, which by that time we will be in phase 2, so it actually turned out better for us. Both insurances paid lifetime max whereas if I had stayed at my old job, we would have had to pay the entire amount for Phase 2.

I do recommend going to HR and talking to the ortho's office. My ortho's office seemend to know more about what was going on than the HR people did.

 

[SplashMtnCrew]

Hi. Not sure if any of you have been in this situation but....

My son started with orthodontics a few months ago. Well now DH will lose his job early next year. He may even choose to leave his co. early and start a new job as soon as a month from now. Anyway, my ques is - once you start with a certain insurance (I have Aetna) will the new insurance at the new job continue where we left off? I hope my question makes sense.

Thanks.

My DS has been in braces for 18 months. Our orthodontist's financial dept explained to us that in order to recieve the ortho coverage, which is usually $1000.00, we had to have the SAME insurance policy at the end as we did when we started and if not, we would then owe them what the ortho ins. would have paid. Even if a new insurance comp has ortho coverage or uses the same ins co., it must be the same ins plan at the beginning and at the end, without ever having changed. The rules/laws may vary by state or insurance companies but that is our experience. As our luck generally goes, DH's company didn't have ortho insurance at all so we have to pay the whole enchiladia BTW, ours total was just over $5000.00 is that in the ballpark of what others are paying? That price also includes some other things that DS had to have done.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

We paid $2490, insurance paid $1400. Max ortho benefits were $1600, but apparently it is tiered somehow and we didn't get that last $200. Maybe if DS's treatment had been more expensive? And his was pretty straightforward treatment - no extractions or anything like that, just braces.

 

[Nancy]

Ourold dental had a plan max and the new one had a plan max. I know the new insurance is being billed monthly and is paying 50 % up to 1500.00 a kid (I had 2 in braces for a bit). Now I need to go back and see how the old insurance paid and how much. I don't think they did it monthly with BCBS but I can't remeber what it said