I wasn’t a senior citizen when I retired, but by taking early retirement and moving with my husband into a retirement community in Florida, most of my neighbors and friends were. Of course, by 2007 I had officially joined their ranks, but by then I was already well aware of the concerns and challenges facing this demographic group. I became determined to do something about one of those issues, that being dental care. There are several points in your life in which the average person sees an uptick in dental costs. Throughout childhood is one of the big periods, with cavities, teeth damaged during roughhousing and sometimes orthodontic requirements like braces being familiar to parents. Things tend to slow down a bit for three or four decades, but by the time you’re approaching senior years, dental issues are once again making themselves apparent. Human teeth weren’t really designed to last for seventy or eighty years and by the time the average person is in their fifties or sixties, signs of wear and tear can lead to costly work. Think crowns, bridges, gum restoration and dentures, among other procedures. Unfortunately, by this time, many people are retired and no longer covered by their former employer’s benefits. So there are two issues to deal with. First is the actual cost of dental procedures and the second is finding a good dentist. Some people pursue the option of buying private dental insurance, but the premiums can be very expensive and that makes it out of the question for many seniors. Besides the cost, insurance plans often dictate which dentist you are allowed to use, and there can be little choice in the matter; if you don’t like the dentist your provider deals with, too bad. There is an alternative to private insurance coverage, though. Instead of trading high monthly premiums for partial to complete coverage (depending on the policy’s coverage limitations) at a specific dental office, there are dental plans out there which offer very low monthly fees in return for significantly discounted costs at participating dental centers. I’ve seen plans that offer discounts of anywhere from 20% to 60% off, with over 50,000 participating dentists and a monthly fee of under $7. You can almost afford to retire at those rates.
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