Why You Should Take Advantage of Your Benefits Right Now

December is considered one of the busiest times of the year. Individuals and families start traveling for the holidays, and those who are staying at home are frantically shopping for last minute holiday gifts or preparing their homes for guests. You may be wondering when you would even have the time to visit the dentist, but the truth is, now is actually the best time to see us! Why? Your health insurance benefits will expire at the end of the month, and you won’t see those again for a while. Here’s why you should take advantage of your health insurance benefits before the end of the year: Your Annual Deductible Resets Every health and dental insurance provider require that you meet a deductible (a certain amount you must pay out of pocket) before they begin to provide increased coverage. This deductible is an amount set yearly; in other words, you have the entire year to reach this number. If you’ve used any of your health or dental insurance this year, you have likely surpassed your deductible by now, allowing you to reap the full benefits of your insurance without having to spend any more for it. Why should you take advantage of this now? As mentioned above, your deductible that is set by your insurance company is a yearly amount. Meaning that as soon as the New Year hits, the progress you’ve made on it automatically resets itself. If you don’t use the benefits that become available to you after paying off the deductible for the current year, they go away and you can’t get them back until you pay off the deductible for the next year. You Have Annual Maximums to Use Dental insurance providers often have an annual maximum, which is a limit on how much they will pay to cover you for the year. Once you’ve reached this limit, you’ll have to start paying for additional dental treatments out of pocket for the rest of the year. Normally, the annual maximum for dental insurance is set fairly low—ranging between $1,000 and $2,000. If you have significant work done on your teeth, this limit can be reached pretty fast early in the year. However, if you have an annual maximum that you haven’t quite reached yet, now’s the time to use those remaining funds. If you take care of any dental work you need now, you’ll start off with a clean slate—a reset maximum. In addition, you’ll be less likely to have a shortage of coverage in the new year.