Can someone please explain to me the point of dental insurance that doesn’t cover standard maintanance? I have a DHMO plan — and maybe that’s the problem? I haven’t had a chance to dig really deep into it yet. But this plan doesn’t cover cleanings or simple fillings or, apparently, regular checkups(?!), much less extensive treatment. That seems just the slightest bit stupid to me. Why do I have it at all?

In the past two months, I’ve been to the dentist three times. The first time I went in — and granted, it’d been a looooong time since my last sit in the chair — I got a root canal the same day. The first dental procedure I recall having that was more extensive than a filling. I’d expected (hoped?) to go in and get a prescription for antibiotics/pain meds for a tooth infection. Five hours later, insurance covered about $200 of roughly $1300 worth of work. The rest I had to put on my office’s credit plan which, thankfully is 12 months, no interest unless I’m late/miss a payment. Before they told me about the credit thing, I just about walked out crying, thinking I was just going to have to deal with the pain.

The second trip was to have my permanent crown seated, and the most recent visit on the 6th was my “regular checkup,” which, when I made the appointment, I’d assumed included a cleaning. Now, maybe the military has spoiled me, but every time I went in for my checkups, I got a cleaning after they finished poking around. Is this normal? Is it too much to ask that they try to consolidate appointments as much as possible? Yanno, so I don’t have to miss time from work every other week, and thus not get paid money I’ll need for treatment that my fricking dental insurance won’t pay for?

Also, how can you tell if you’re being given more expensive procedures when something simpler would suffice? Like the cleaning they scheduled me for for next week (ugh!), which will apparently “go deeper” into my gums to try and reduce…um…pockets in the gumline…or something. Can I just get my teeth cleaned/scraped/whatever the hell they do that I can’t to make them squeaky-smooth feeling again? I’m not a dentist by any stretch, but digging down into the gums to shrink holes/cavities/pockets/whatever they call them seems a little counterproductive if you ask me. Kinda like when they poke at them with their little needle-y instruments and say “Oh! You’ve got some bleeding here!” Hey Doc, lemme poke at your gums with stabby things and see if they don’t bleed. (For the record, I don’t have problems with my gums bleeding when I brush.) But this cleaning will run me something like $240, $5 of which is actually covered by insurance.

Yeah. Hear that sound in the background? That’s my bank account hemorrhaging money.

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