I am in my early twenties and I have wanted braces for at least the past ten years, but could not afford them. When I saw the opportunity to make the investment, I jumped on it. Without a doubt the return on investing in your physical and emotional health will outweigh even some of the highest costs. My hygienists had always suggested that I get braces, as I suffer from severe crowding that prevented me from maintaining good oral health. I had very low self-confidence and never smiled with my teeth, as they were a real embarrassment to me. Despite being successful academically and in the professional world, I knew I needed to get my teeth treated for health purposes, but also to better my quality of life.
Once I decided that I was going to get braces, I asked my dentist to recommend orthodontists that I should make a consultation appointment with. Additionally, I did my own research, because many dentists get a kick back from sending their patients to certain orthodontists. I met with my current orthodontist in November of 2010. He discussed all of the options available to me and introduced me to ceramic and incognito braces. The benefit of ceramic braces is that ceramic blends in with the color of your teeth and makes the braces less visible. Note that ceramic braces are bonded on the outer side of your teeth just as traditional metal braces are. However, Incognito braces, or lingual braces, are bonded to the inner side of your teeth. They are thus completely invisible to other people, but perform the same procedures as traditional metal braces.
After we discussed my options, the doctor had his office manager go over the costs of various procedures. Going into the consultation I had budgeted far more than what I was quoted for the most expensive procedure, full incognito. I decided to purchase incognito braces for both my top and bottom arches.
I postponed starting my procedure until January 2011 to take advantage of a flexible spending account offered by my employer. If you are unfamiliar with how flexible spending accounts work, during open enrollment you select how much money you would like to have deducted from your pay check on a before tax basis for eligible health care costs. Orthodontics is an eligible medical expense. I highly suggest anyone looking into getting braces or making any other planned health care expenditure do so using a FSA. I will discuss how much it saved me below.
The incognito treatment was quoted at approximately $8,800. I was lucky that my insurance covered $2,500. I also received a $500 discount for being a patient of my dentist. For the remaining $5,800, I was given several options. I could pay in full and received a 5% “book keeping discount” or take advantage of several financing options. I chose to pay in full for a total of $5,510. In a perfect world, I would pay with a credit card and get the points, but that was not an option for me at the time so I wrote a check. I then sent my health care provider the appropriate forms and received my money back in a lump sum. Given my tax bracket and various other parameters, I estimate that the real cost to me for the braces is $4,466. Almost half of the total cost quoted and earned by my orthodontist for the service.
With that, my advice to anyone looking to invest in orthodontics is to make sure you go into your treatment with your eyes open. Take full advantage of all financial options available to you. A little preparation saved me over $4,000. If I had overlooked my insurance coverage, the availability of a FSA, or my eligibility for discounts I would have been feeling even more pain in my pocket than I already am. Let's try to keep the pain focused on moving our teeth >=p.
My next post will be about my molds and the start of my treatment.
Cheers!
