Having missing teeth can affect both your appearance and your confidence. Teeth can fall out for a number of reasons, from injuries and accidents or from tooth decay or gum disease. Sometimes you may have to have a tooth pulled out by the dentist if it is giving your trouble and it will be difficult to repair and heal.
If you have missing teeth, the way to fill in the gaps is with dental implants, which involves replacing the roots of your teeth. With dental implants, you then have a strong base on which removable or fixes replacement teeth can be made to fit your mouth and inserted into the dental implant. This improves not only your appearance, but can have an impact on your speech, comfort, eating and self-esteem. There are many benefits to getting dental implants, but there is one significant disadvantage – dental implants are very expensive.
Does my insurance cover dental implants?
Most insurance schemes do not cover dental implants for missing teeth, although the cost of the dental implants may be covered by your insurance depending on the cause of the tooth loss and your particular insurance cover plan.
In fact, over 90 percent of dental insurance schemes have a missing tooth clause. What this means is that the insurance company is not obliged to pay for the replacement of a missing tooth through dental implants or any other process if that tooth was already missing before the policy was in effect. For example, if a company has a missing tooth clause in their scheme, they would not cover the cost of a dental implant if you lost your tooth before coverage started. If you have been inflicted with missing teeth after your coverage had begun, however, you may be eligible to have the cost of replacing the tooth covered, although chances of this are relatively slim.
Every situation is different and depends on the type of insurance as well as the cause of the missing teeth, so be sure to consult both your dentist and insurance company to find out if you are eligible for covered dental implants for your missing teeth.
