Hands up who loves going to the dentist? Unsurprisingly not many hands shoot up. It must be strange being a dentist; most of the time no one wants to see you. Unless, of course, they have toothache, then you’re the most popular person in the world.
The vast majority of people should rarely suffer from toothache so long as they look after their teeth and attend a dentist for routine check ups regularly. Mind you, putting off check ups is easy to do, even if you are registered with a dentist. If you don’t have a regular dentist, not only will you lose out from the regular contact and therefore the knowledge of your history your dentist will have, it’s even easier to put off those check ups.
Depending where you live, it can sometimes be hard to register as an NHS patient with a local dentist, and even if you can, you’ll probably have absolutely no choice which surgery you can use. Most surgeries have full NHS lists, but will happily sign you up as a private patient, and even for routine check ups this can be expensive. When you think about it though, the costs aren’t surprising when you take into account the number of years it takes to qualify as a dentist, the number of nurses and support staff your average surgery has and the cost of all their high tech equipment.
When it comes to dentistry, NHS doesn’t mean free at the point of use, as we’re used to with the vast majority of our healthcare within the UK. Even if you manage to register as an NHS patient, you’ll still incur costs for your treatment.
Talking about any form of private healthcare brings to mind private medical health insurance as a way to pay for the healthcare, however this is where we hit a problem. The vast majority of private medical insurance policies won’t cover you for any dental treatment unless you choose to add on the additional cost of the benefit.
If you work for a company that provides you with private health insurance as part of your remuneration package, you may well be covered for dental care because your employer has chosen to add dental cover to their employee benefits. If you aren’t lucky enough to be covered by a company policy you’re either stuck with trying to find a local NHS dentist and still having some costs, paying for private dental care or taking out some private insurance to cover the costs of a private dentist.
There aren’t actually that many policies available to the individual to comprehensively cover both routine, accidental and emergency dental care, which after all is what we’re all used to for other areas of healthcare on the NHS. One company that specialises in dental cover is Denplan; I suppose the name gives it away somewhat.
Historically, most of Denplan’s policies have tended to be used to provide dental plan cover for corporate clients although this has recently changed with the introduction of a Denplan scheme specifically tailored for individuals by specialist healthcare insurance provider Nugent Santé. In keeping with all of the schemes Nugent Santé offers, there are a range of options giving everyone the opportunity to choose a dental plan policy that’s perfect for their needs and within their budget.
You can find out more about the Nugent Santé Denplan policy here or by contacting them for a no obligation discussion about what might be the best way for you to proceed.
Relax knowing that whatever life throws at you, you and your smile are covered with your very own dental plan.
