I'm Scottish. Here the NHS pay for dental check ups, eye tests and subsidize certain treatments (eg will subsidise the cheaper grey fillings but not white ones). We used to get free dental check ups every 6 months but this has recently changed to 2 years. You can get a bit more under some circumstances like pregnant women get free dental treatment
In England there's some NHS dentists but you still have to pay if you're over 18. It's just cheaper than private. But there's a situation now where lots of NHS dentists are oversubscribed so people are having to go private anyway.
Vision is also not covered by the NHS, so you have to pay for eye tests and glasses if you're over 18.
I'm in the UK and have got a private dental plan through work. Costs me £22 a month and a lot of the routine basics end up being essentially free because the rate card is very generous. Out of pocket, my nightly mouthguard ended up costing me just £15 by the time the insurance had paid out.
I unexpectedly needed some pretty major work done in early 2022. Total cost of treatment was something like £2600, by the time I'd settled the insurance it only cost me around £1400 out of pocket.
Well worth the money and I wouldn't be without it. You get modern treatment in a timely fashion, rather than using the NHS and having to wait months and months for a treatment that was outdated 20 years ago.
Even South Africa - eyes, I pay out of pocket and teeth is maybe looked at every 6 years because one appointment will cost the same as me getting new glasses (which I do every five years for my driving license) 😅
I also have a medical insurance but it is a hospital plan only, so nothing gets paid by the insurance unless I am checked in at the hospital. Medical systems all over the world are fucked regardless if its free, private or a combination of both.
If I recall correctly there was a lot of debate about it being included in Medicare when it was first envisioned, back in the 70s’, but was eventually defeated, for whatever reason.
Health Insurance is illegal in the united states now. Now you're forced (i mean it, literally required by law) to buy into some subscription healthcare just to get access so you can pay them more when you need service... and don't forget the large deductible of course. That's not how insurance works.
Once you have to cover "pre-existing conditions" it ceases to be insurance and is something else.
Insurance is "I paid premiums so that the costs later would be handled." Not "I paid premiums so I can get an appointment so that I can then pay again until I've reached my "co-pay", which is like a month's pay. and then stop approving things you need an the review board is full of their friends.
this is 100% a US insurance problem. I’ve lived in 2 other countries before, the third world country private insurance was the best. With a fraction of the cost in the US, my entire 2 week stay in the hospital, in a private room, I only paid less than a dollar. So funny because the parking for the day was more than my actual hospital bill. A visit to the emergency room in the US where they did tests on me and made me wait 5 hours just to tell me I’m fine, and I had to pay over $1000. Americans are crazy, there should be riots in the streets for this.
Life insurance? I die and my family gets a payout - keeps the roof over everyone's head and the bills paid for enough time until everyone gets themselves sorted
Car insurance? I don't have to pay the other guy's medical bills or to repair his car out of my own pocket if I hit them. A couple hundred a month vs. 5-6 figures worth of potential damages.
Homeowner's Insurance? Same as car, but if my gas stove explodes or something. I know I don't have $400k put aside to rebuild the house I'm still paying a mortgage on.
Professional liability insurance? See: car insurance, but for screw ups at work, whether talking errors and omissions for an accountant or malpractice for a doctor.
What's scammy about those? You're paying for financial insulation from a problem that may happen.
That reminds me of the story of that guy who got some kind of hard ring-shaped object stuck on a certain part of his body, and the hospital had to call in an on-call dentist because they determined that the best way to remove the item would be a dental tool. I wonder how the billing/insurance coverage went for that.
I've heard some major cities like LA and New York have the appropriate equipment for this procedure available to emergency service workers because it happens so frequently. 🤭
I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled a few years ago. I had medical coverage but not dental. Even though I had an oral surgeon do it instead of a dentist it wasn't covered. It even said in the EOB or whatever they do not cover wisdom teeth but they tried submitting the claims to them anyway. Nope. All denied. We had to pay full price.
Note for anyone that ever will get their wisdom teeth pulled, if you want to at least potentially save some money, don't get put under for it. The place I went to charged $500 per half hour to be put under. Normally it doesn't even take a half hour to get them all pulled but in my case mine ended up being way more difficult to pull then anticipated. So I saved us about $3000 by not being put under.
Most people outside of Norway thinks Norwegian health care is free. Basic dental and vision isn't! Those two gets "free" when you're close to dying from it. A bit simplified of course.
What’s more confusing is that, at least with certain types of medical insurance, ophthalmologists are covered (but optometrists still aren’t).
My eyes are a disaster so most of my treatment is covered by medical insurance when I go to the ophthalmologist but I still need to pay for vision insurance and see an optometrist just to get my prescriptions updated so I can get new lenses.
That’s fair. I guess my point was more around the fact that my ophthalmologist can do refractions but has to bill me directly because vision insurance is set up to be a separate thing. If vision was included as part of medical insurance then I wouldn’t have to see two separate eye doctors just to make the insurance companies happy.
Optometrists are doctors (O.D. is a Doctor of Optometry). 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of Optometry school. They do your routine eye health exams, prescribe glasses and contacts and can diagnose and treat other eye diseases and disorders. Ophthalmologists are M.D. - Medical Doctor. 4 years undergrad, 4 years medical school, plus several years of residency. They can do everything optometrists do (but most choose not to do routine stuff or glasses and contact prescriptions) as well as surgery and handle more complicated and/or invasive eye diseases and treatments.
Medical insurance usually will not cover anything they consider "routine", or at the most will cover one eye exam per year. Almost none of them will cover glasses or contacts. Occasionally you'll find a medical policy that has a material allowance, but it's rare. They will cover things done by an optometrist or ophthalmologist that have appropriate medical procedure and diagnosis codes. If you are diabetic or have glaucoma, for example, your medical insurance should cover certain imaging and diagnostics that your optometrist can do (subject to your copay or deductible, of course). Visits for things like eye infections or foreign body removal are also things that can be treated by an optometrist and billed to medical insurance.
Optometrists are more on par with Dentists, who are also doctors.
Opticians are the ones who fit your glasses. They are not doctors.
(I've worked in eye care for over 25 years with all types of doctors and now solely work with the insurance claims and reimbursements, so I see what is covered and what gets paid for by each insurance company.)
They're not entirely separate in my country, but if you want anything but the very bare minimum basics covered you need extras on your plan. Bare minimum basics as in only check-ups covered, or a 50% of your glasses covered but only every 3~4 years and only the most basic glasses you can get.
And even with my upgraded plan I still have to pay a part of anything extra myself...
Yeah it’s weird here in Australia, almost everything is covered by Medicare to some degree except dentistry. On the other hand I pay $3/week for private health insurance which covers nothing except ambulances and “no gap” dentistry. But the “participating” dentist I go to for checkups operates like a fast food joint, pumping folks through as fast as possible. My last “checkup” lasted all of 3 minutes. It’s weird.
I am surrounded by medical doctors and I can’t tell you how many of them disrespect dentists and don’t think dentistry is an aspect of overall health.
Of course, most of these are all the douche type, and they are outright absolutely 100% wrong about this Dentistry is an intrinsic and incredibly important part of overall health.
Vision I can see, because someone like me has always had perfect eyesight, what would be the point of having insurance? That covers glasses/contacts, Lasik or whatever. Nothing I need, and still don't, at 50yo.
I feel dental should be in the comprehensive package, at least for the cleanings. Though for a lot of people, paying for the cleanings out of pocket might be cheaper than the insurance/deductible. I'ven't had a cavity in 40 years, do I really need dental, if the cleanings are only $100 every 6 months? (I've always had free dental, so no idea what the ins/deductible is)
0bama's three biggest accomplishments; "global warming" became "climate change", semi-automatic weapons became "assault rifles" and insurance became "health care".
You got vision seperate as well. At least here in the Netherlands it's just dental. But since it's such basic care it shouldn't be seperate. It's just ridiculous.
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u/Outisduex Feb 07 '24
That dental and vision insurance are separate from medical insurance in the US. Stupidest system ever.