My Debt Blog

For the last few months I have had a serious amount of dental work done. I’ve got really bad teeth and a few years ago some molars started to weaken and break down on me.

As you can see I had a lot of work primarily done on just two teeth. I will most likely have to get a crown on the tooth that had the root canal done next year. Right now I am very happy to have a full normal feeling tooth again. This tooth cracked in half and was rebuilt back in May. The pain from the tooth started to get worse and I guess the nerve was bad and root canal was the fix for it. In the middle of the root canal the tooth cracked in half again, the crown for the other tooth had to go in, and two more appointments later it was finished. My last appointment on this tooth was this past Saturday. I’m happy that I have no more planned until my regular cleaning later this year.

After 2.5k worth of work being done, 1k out of my pocket and 1.5k paid by insurance, I would do it all over again if I had to. These totals are only for the work I had done this year. I have had as much stuff done since 2005 when I first addressed my dental issues. In college I neglected going to the dentist for regular checkups and such and it caught up to me. I’m glad I have dental insurance to help me cover the costs as well as the money to pay my part of the bill. Never take your teeth for granted, (warning: totally intended pun coming) you might find yourself biting off more than you can chew.

Question for my readers: Has your dental insurance come through to help you cover a major procedure?

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As the weekend approaches I can at least rest assured that the end of the month is Monday. At the start of each month I have a paycheck and listing of known expenses and some estimated ones. I’m always on edge as the money starts to run low in the middle and the end of a month. I’m not sure if something bad is going to happen or there will be an unforeseen expense that jumps on me at the wrong time.

June had some rough challenges due to having to go through a root canal and paying the car insurance bill. This was a challenge however at the same time my wife brought home some extra money this month from her new job. This check was for roughly half a week’s worth of training time and helped us buffer some of these increased expenses. Unfortunately even with the extra money and expenses we weren’t able to really tackle the debt load. July is a new month though and we have a vacation planned towards the end of it. Since we’ll be gone for a week of July, some expenses will be reduced. The last thing I want to do is go into debt or blow away the emergency fund in a month we went on vacation.

I’m in the process of creating a post on the various dental work I have had done. This stuff is expensive even with insurance, but it had to be done right away. My insurance changed and it isn’t easy to front the cost while waiting on a check in the mail to put those funds back in my account. I think I’m going to try a different dentist after this last procedure is finished.

Last thing I’m excited about is the annual Taste of Chicago starts this weekend. We got our Taste tickets early during their presale for $6 per strip of 12, 4 strips at a time. Since we were unable to go last year due to a wedding, it should be a good time this year.

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I finally had my dentist appointment to have a tooth looked at that has been a major pain for some time. Part of the tooth had cracked and the fissure in it wasn’t helping things. The dentist did some testing on the tooth to check the nerve, things seemed positive. After a bit of drilling away I guess the decay was into the nerve and the news is I have to have a root canal done on the tooth. One thing that is for certain, after that is done there won’t be any more pain from it since the nerve will be gone.

Financially speaking I’m probably looking at a significant bill just for the root canal. I will more than likely wait a few months after that before having a crown put on the tooth. From what I figured out it will be at least $500 out of pocket which I will try to roll into the budget, maybe slide along with help from the EF to spread the cost over 3 months. At least my dental insurance will pick up the other half of the cost. This is the last major dental work I must have done, then all I need to worry about is cleanings. My going to the dentist lapsed quite a bit while I was gone at college, otherwise a lot of issues I’ve had over the past 3 years could have been avoided. It’s very important to go to the dentist twice a year for cleaning and inspection.

My wife on the other hand also has to have some dental work done this summer. Her wisdom teeth have been a problem for quite some time and need to be removed. I think that might be a medical procedure so we’ll have to see what our cost will be for that. When I had my wisdom teeth removed it was a really bad experience. When a blood clot doesn’t form where the tooth was, it’s called dry socket. My jaw bone was exposed to my mouth which is really painful and prone to infections. I had migraine headaches, sinus infection, and some other stuff. This is why I keep telling her to have it done this summer so she has time to recover if things are rough.

Question for my readers: Have you had any major dental work done like root canal? What was it like and did you have insurance to help pay for it?

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My medical insurance costs are about to go up. Plan A costs me $1250 and Plan B cost me $2100 for the remainder of the year. First off though, the type of plan does matter too. Plan A is a POS and Plan B is a PPO, so they each have pros and cons.

Plan A requires a PCP and has a specific network of doctors and specialists. Instead of meeting a deductible, I would only have to pay a co pay. Depending on how many times we would go to the doctor or see a specialist, those co pay costs could add up. There are some other strict rules on requiring pre-approval for certain things first. I don’t know much about these plans since I have never used one. For the most part, it sounds like an HMO.

Plan B doesn’t need a PCP and has a huge network. There is a $300 deductible that has to be met before 80/20 payment kicks in. It depends on whether or not the 20% out of pocket costs are worth it for this plan. My parents always used these types of plans since you have a lot more freedom over where you can go. I got injured in college and went to the ER, this type of plan picked up most of the cost. Is the extra expense worth being able to go to the doctor or any specialist I want?

Both the plans have good prescription coverage, $5 generic, $15 formulary, and $35 for specialty. I always try to get generics since they’re cheaper and work just as well as the fancy ones with the name printed on the pill. This part of the change is even better than what I currently have, so I’m happy in that regard. My dental coverage changed a little but not enough to be an issue. Vision insurance isn’t an issue right now since my wife maxed out what we have when she got her glasses. She is good for at least 2 years now.

This increased cost will affect the take home pay a little bit, in either case. When my wife gets a permeate job we will have to re-evaluate the options because her insurance could be better than mine. Right now these figures are for both me and my wife, so they would be greatly reduced if it was only me. No matter how you spin the issue of medical insurance, it is better to have something than go with nothing.

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