Insurance Information
Patients who received dental benefits from their employer should consider themselves fortunate. This benefit is like a “voucher” that may reduce the cost of dental treatment. However, no dental benefit plan covers 100% of your costs and your particular treatment needs may exceed your calendar year maximum benefits.
Dental Plans
Employers offer dental plans based on a contract between their business and an insurance company. The level of insurance coverage you have is agreed upon by your employer and the insurer.
Your dental coverage is not based on what Dr. Noraian recommends or what you need. Your dental coverage is based upon how much you or your employer pay into the insurance plan. For this reason, employers choose to cover some, but not all, of your dental costs. Let your employer know if you are not satisfied with coverage provided by your insurance.
Our Role
Dr. Noraian has the goal of helping you take good care of your teeth and gums.
Dr. Noraian’s staff will help you to avoid surprises on your dental bill by helping you understand what your insurance does not cover and what you will need to cover. Dental benefits should not be confused with your treatment needs, which Dr. Noraian and his staff will help you determine.
Dr. Noraian’s staff has experience dealing with many different insurance companies. Over the years, each company may offer many different dental and medical plans which may change benefits, co-pays, and deductibles many times throughout the year. We do our best to provide you with accurate coverage estimates based on information available to us. At times, it is almost impossible to accurately estimate a patient’s level of coverage or insurance co-payment. Many insurance companies will not give out fees until after the treatment is completed. Dealing with these companies can be difficult and time consuming. As a courtesy, we ask that you keep us informed of any change to your insurance. It is important that all information about you and your insurance is current.
Further, most dental insurance policies are limited and often only pay for a portion of the procedure(s) that may need to be done.
We pride ourselves on being able to control your healthcare costs. To continue to offer the latest in proven periodontal and dental implant therapies, we ask that your pay for treatment in full at the time of service and we will submit a claim to your insurance carrier on your behalf with a request to make the payment directly to you. Despite our efforts, insurance carriers may erroneously remit the payment to us and we will need to issue you a check to refund the overpayment on your account.
Co-Payment
Unless arrangements have been made in advance, we ask patients to pay for treatment at the time of service. Though many dental plans reimburse approximately 30-80 percent of treatment costs it is difficult to determine the exact amount of a co-payment without submitting a pre-estimate. Our goal is to help patients receive treatment in a timely manner and waiting to hear back from an insurance may take weeks, thus delaying important treatment. So, to help expedite treatment, we accept cash, personal checks, MasterCard, Visa, Discover and CareCredit.
HMO Patients
If a patient comes to us with a problem that they expect to be covered by medical insurance (biopsies, tumors, TMJ, infections), they must have a referral from their primary care physician. A referral from a dentist is not adequate for medical insurance coverage. Obtaining a medical referral is the patient’s responsibility. We cannot obtain the referral for you and the referral cannot be obtained retroactively. If you do not have a referral, we will be happy to see you on a cash basis, but your medical insurance company will not pay for your treatment.
Medicare
Typically, Medicare does not cover dental procedures. As these procedures are denied by Medicare, you are responsible for the charges.
Private & Group Insurance
As a courtesy to you when you have medical and/or dental benefit plans, we will gladly file a claim on your behalf electronically including claim forms, receipts, and other information to your insurance company. Of course, you always have the option of submitting the claim yourself. In general, insurers tend to process claims filed directly by patients faster than those filed by the service providers (dental offices).
Upon submitting your claim from our office, we request that the claim be remitted to you directly by the insurance company. Despite our efforts, occasionally the insurance company will remit the payment to our office so if there is a credit on your account, it will be refunded to you.