Most people know that maintaining their oral health is essential to a healthy lifestyle. They want to make the commitment to improve their oral health, but have a hard time choosing between traditional dental insurance and a dental discount plan. It is therefore important that you understand how the differences between dental insurance and dental discount plans can affect you.

Dental insurance policies can be typically characterized by monthly premiums, deductibles and annual maximums.

As an alternative, dental discount plans are designed to be as accessible as possible; they do not share any of the characteristics of dental insurance.

The monthly premiums for typical dental insurance policies may be as much as $50 a month for individuals and in excess of $100 per month for family plans.

As an alternative, dental discount plans are far less expensive. Dental discount plans start from under $7 per month for individuals, under $12 per month for couples and under $16 per month for families. In addition, if you do your research, you can also find a plan that includes free vision care discounts.

Usually, people using dental insurance must meet their deductible before their dental insurance starts to cover their dental care; when making comparisons it's therefore important to consider the cost of the deductible as one of the overall costs associated with dental insurance.

It is difficult to put a specific cost on the deductible because it depends on the dental insurance policy you own. Having said that, annual deductibles usually vary from $50 to $100 per covered individual.

Dental discount plans do not have deductibles. Instead, dental discount plan members pay a membership fee that qualifies them to pay discounted rates at participating dentists at the time services are rendered.

Most dental insurance plans cap the amount of reimbursement to an annual maximum that is typically $1,000 to $1,500 per year. The insured person is then responsible for 100% of all costs over and above the annual maximum.

Dental discount plans do not have annual maximums. Plan members are able to use their discount dental cards as often and as much as they want to. There is absolutely no limit to the amount of money cardholders can save by using a dental discount plan.

People with dental insurance policies are always moaning about the time-consuming red tape they are forced to deal with, including the need to provide written claims, exclusions on pre-existing conditions and the excessive waiting periods for major procedures. As an alternative, easy to use dental discount plans are designed to save members time as well as money!

Most dental insurance policies require policyholders to go through a tedious and very time consuming written claims process, each time they have a claim!

There is no such tedious paperwork and hassles for dental discount cardholders; discount dental plan members simply present their membership card to a participating provider at the time of service to receive their discounts.

Dental insurance plans will often either refuse to cover certain procedures or impose a long waiting period. If you are considering dental insurance you need to be aware that many dental insurance policies have exclusions on pre-existing conditions and may require up to as much as an 18 month waiting period before paying for any major dental treatment.

As an alternative, dental discount plans are free of all such limitations and become effective immediately, allowing plan members to join and start saving on their dental care straight away.

Many dental discount plans offer significant savings on dental specialties, such as orthodontics and teeth whitening, while most dental insurance policies rarely cover such procedures.

Because of the escalating cost of dental insurance, dental insurance has become inaccessible to a large number of individuals and families.

Cost effective dental discount plans are accessible to individuals, families and businesses as an alternative to unaffordable traditional dental insurance.

Dental discount plans are also an easy and flexible way for businesses to save time and money on valuable dental care for their employees.

Despite the differences between traditional dental insurance and dental discount plans, they can even be used together in certain situations to maximize savings.

To summarize, dental discount plans are an affordable and easy to use alternative to traditional dental insurance and offer plan members substantial savings on most dental procedures.