Dental insurance, though perhaps not deemed as essential as medical insurance, offers a number of perks that merit its consideration as a valuable benefit, employers and insurance brokers here say.


Doug Toone, owner of Spokane-based Jewelry Design Center Inc., says his company pays for dental insurance to help retain quality employees.


In my industry we have quite a few craftsmen, and the good ones are extremely hard to find, he says. In order for me to keep them, I need to take very good care of them.


Jewelry Design Center offers its 23 employees dental coverage through Greensboro, N.C.-based Jefferson Pilot Financial Insurance Co., Toone says. Though dental-insurance rates have been increasing, the company will continue to provide coverage because employees appreciate the extra benefit that helps them to take care of their teeth, he says.


Rick Huddleston, an insurance broker and owner of Spokane-based Huddleston Independent Insurance Inc., says dental insurance usually offers a good deal to everyone involved.


Most dental plans require employers to pay a sumtypically $24 to $40 a month per employeethat the employers can deduct as a business expense from their deductible income, Huddleston says. Besides that advantage, dental coverage might help employers retain workers who consider it to be a valuable benefit, he says.


Though only 4 percent of people with dental insurance typically go to the dentist in any given month, employees appreciate having the ability to do so without having to worry so much about the cost, Huddleston says.


The bottom line is its there, ready to be used any day of the month, he says. If a person wakes up with a toothache, its a comfort factor that they can go to the dentist.


Dental coverage also helps dentists by ensuring they get paid for their services, he says.


Dental insurance basics


Chuck Kieffer, manager of the Eastern Washington sales office for Seattle-based Washington Dental Service (WDS), says employers usually look at dental, medical, and vision insurance plans separately to determine which plans meet their employees needs best.


Enrolling in group dental plans allows employees who need extensive dental work to receive that care at lower costs because the cost is spread across the entire group of insured, he says.


The good teeth subsidize the bad teeth, he says.


WDS is a nonprofit health-service corporation that contracts with dentists across the state through its parent organization, Delta Dental Plan Association, of Oak Brook, Ill. WDS contracts with about 90 percent of the dentists in Washington, including 200 dentists in the city of Spokane, to provide group coverage for more than 2 million patients in the state, Kieffer says.


WDS offers three types of dental plans: fee-for-service, preferred provider organization (PPO), and managed care.


Fee-for-service plans pay the dentist for each service, rather than paying a monthly amount per patient. This type of plan usually includes a deductible and requires a monthly premium and co-pay.


PPO plans, which offer dental care from any dentist within a preferred-provider network, often provide greater benefits because participating dentists typically agree to charge lower fees to subscribers, Kieffer says. Managed-care plans pay dentists a fixed monthly fee per enrollee and sometimes require patient co-pays, which can be lower than those required by fee-for-service plans.


To enroll in any of the plans, WDS requires that an employer group of at least five people participate and calls for employers to pay at least 75 percent of employee-only premiums, Kieffer says. The latter requirement helps balance out the number of subscribers with good and bad teeth by providing an incentive to all to enroll, he says.


If the employer is paying for it, it takes the decision making out of the patients hands, he says.


WDS doesnt require employers to pay such a high percentage of premiums to insure employees family members, but typically requires that 50 percent of eligible employees add their dependents to the plans, he says.


Most basic dental plans, including those offered through WDS, cover a certain percentage of the American Dental Associations three-tiered classification of treatments, he says. WDS covers 80 percent to 100 percent of costs for class 1 treatments, including exams, x-rays, and cleaning; 80 percent of class 2 treatments, including fillings, tooth extractions, root canals, and oral surgery; and about 50 percent of class 3 major restorative procedures such as crowns, dentures, and bridges, he says.


Each plan includes a maximum amount, usually set at $1,000, that the carrier will pay in a year to cover a subscribers costs, Kieffer says. Plans might include a deductible amount up to about $50 for class 2 and class 3 treatments, but wont include deductibles for class 1 treatments, he says.


The deductible isnt applied in most cases because we want to encourage that type of treatment, and that deductible is a barrier, he says.


WDS and other dental carriers also offer supplemental orthodontic plans that pay for a certain percentage of orthodontia costs up to another set maximum amount, he says.


Employers costs for dental plans vary according to the type of plan, group size, and a number of other factors, Kieffer says. Employers typically pay $35 to $45 a month per employee, another $35 for each employees spouse, and slightly higher amounts for each additional dependent, he says.


Most small employers only pay for employee coverage, but there are some employers who pay for 50 percent or all of dependent coverage, he says.


WDS offers an incentive program that encourages subscribers to maintain good dental hygiene, which can prevent detrimental and costly teeth and gum problems, Kieffer says. In that program, WDS covers an additional 10 percent of the costs of class 1 and class 2 treatments every year in which a subscriber visits a dentist at least once, he says.


In the long run, that incentive helps subscribers enjoy better dental health at lower costs, he says.


Dental-insurance costs are lower than medical-insurance costs because medical care requires large capital expenses for rapidly advancing technology and because medical treatments are more involvedand thus are more costly by naturethan dental treatments, Kieffer says. Some employers who use WDS have altered their dental plans to cut costs, but their efforts appear to be aimed mostly at reducing high medical premiums, he says.


The big dollars are in medical insurance, he says. Thats where you can save the most money.


Comparing plans, costs


Mark Newbold, employee benefits broker and consultant at Corkery & Jones Benefits Inc. here, says that probably 60 percent to 70 percent of the 750 employer groups the firm works with offer some type of dental plan. Of those employers, about 10 percent to 15 percent self-insure their dental coverage, he says.


Employers that offer self-insurance dental plans typically pay for dental-care costs and pay a third-party administrator or coverage provider such as WDS to gain access to a network of dentists who accept that coverage and to use the providers claims-processing services, Newbold says. To do that, employers usually have to have a group size of at least 100 people, he says.


Self-insuring appears to be a trend among large employers that are trying to manage costs, which may be feasible since claims might stabilize after employees have received dental care for a number of years, Newbold says.


Employers also can opt to offer dental plans through insurance carriers such as Guardian Life Insurance Co., MetLife Inc., both of New York, and WDS, or through a clinic-based carrier such as Beaverton, Ore.-based Willamette Dental Group, Newbold says.


Willamette, which has two clinics here, limits subscribers to its network of clinics but offers lower premiums and broader coverage than some plans.


Many employers consider dental insurance an important benefit to offer because employees likely will use it more than medical insurance, Newbold says.


The vast majority of people dont use medical insurance because they dont have a major medical event, he says.


Huddleston says an increasing number of employers here that currently dont have dental plans have stopped considering offering them because their budgets already have been hit hard by rising medical-insurance costs. Most dental-insurance plan rates have been increasing about 8 percent to 10 percent a year in recent years, while medical-insurance premiums jumps of 20 percent or more have become commonplace, he says.


Most of the employers that use Huddlestons firm, however, have continued offering dental insurance, he says.


Once they get on a plan, they see how valuable a commodity it is, he says.


Katy Jacobson, compensation and benefits manager at Washington Trust Banks human-resources department, says the banks dental-insurance rates increased 3 percent last year, while its medical-insurance rates increased 9.5 percent to 14 percent each year for the past five years. Washington Trust tries to control costs with plan-design changes rather than large premium increases, she says.


Washington Trust, which self-insures and uses WDS as a carrier, pays 80 percent of dental premiums for its 700 employees and 73 percent for dependent coverage, she says.


Dental-insurance costs also might be increasing less than medical-insurance premiums because people are becoming more faithful about visiting the dentist regularly and maintaining their dental health, Jacobson says. Also, medical insurance might be more expensive because it covers the entire body, not just one part, she says.