While many Americans are able to say that their oral health is relatively healthy or, at least, looks relatively healthy, there are many that cannot say the same. There are numerous disadvantages of poor oral care. For example, oral health is taken into account when potential employers are planning to hire even the most minute employee for lower scale positions. This is an overlooked fact by the Americans that do not suffer from this particular physical problem. Of course, unemployment is not the only thing to stress about when your mouth is not properly taken care of. There are many diseases that accompany underprivileged mouths that can not only harm the body, but possibly cause death. In fact, a 12-year-old boy from Maryland died from a tooth infection because his mother could not afford to take him to the dentist. Emergency visits to the ER due to oral health have skyrocketed these past few years. Why is all of this happening? It seems that dental insurance and the high cost of regular dental visits play an extremely large factor.

Between 1998 and 2008, the increase in the cost of dental services exceeded that of medical care, which came as a shock to all and forced Americans to rethink their dental care checkups because their insurance was no longer compensating enough for it to be worthwhile. When designing the insurance benefits packages, private employers, as well as the federal government, put a very low priority label on dental coverage, forcing the majority of dental visits be paid out of pocket by everyone. Because of this decision, many Americans consider dental coverage to be something more like a small discount rather than actual insurance.

So far, it does not seem likely that anything is going to change in regards to this issue, but maintaining regular visits to the Dentist seems to be the best course of action. Delaying or denying the visits due to pure stubbornness, wanting to prevent pain, or believing the appointment will cost too much, will actually end with more problems than it would have if you had not delayed. Your oral health will continue to decline while you wait, forcing you to have to pay more to fix the increased damage rather than paying less when the problem first surfaced. There are many dental plans that offer full reimbursements for those regular cleanings and checkups.  Keep in mind that nearly every dentist would prefer cash payment rather than deal with insurance companies.  So don’t deprive yourself of dental care because you do not have dental insurance.  Here at Sunrise Family Dentistry, we offer a maintenance and discount plan for everyone without insurance.