PATIENT INFORMATION

Insurance Information

If you have dental benefits, congratulations! You are very fortunate. Your dental benefits are based upon a contract made between your employer and an insurance company. If you have any questions regarding your dental benefits, please contact your employer or insurance company directly. Dental benefit plans will NEVER TOTALLY PAY for completion of your dental care. It is only meant to assist you.

We currently accept all private care insurance plans (plans that do not require you to select from a list or require our office to accept a reduced fee for service). This means that we work with literally thousands of companies. Although we maintain computerized histories of payment by a given company, they do change; therefore it is impossible to give you a guaranteed quote at the time of service. We estimate your portion based on the most up-to-date information we have, but it is ONLY AN ESTIMATE. If you would like to know your exact insurance benefit, we will be happy to file a “pre-treatment authorization” with your insurance company prior to treatment. This does delay treatment but will give you the exact out of pocket figures.

Many people receive notification from their insurance company that dental fees are “above usual and customary.” An insurance company determines their reimbursement level by surveying a geographic area, calculating the average fee, and then determining 80% of the average fee is customary. Included in this survey are discounted dental clinics and managed care facilities, which have severely reduced dental fees that bring down the average. Any doctor in private practice will have fees that insurance companies define as “higher than usual and customary.”

We bill your insurance as a courtesy to you our patient. If insurance does not pay within 90 days, Dr. Wingard reserves the right to request payment in full for services from you, then allow you to collect the insurance funds that are due to you. This rarely happens, but it is important that you recognize the insurance you have is a legal contract between YOU and YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY. Our office is not, and cannot be, a part of that legal contract. Ultimately you are responsible for all charges incurred in our office.