paying for dental treatment

Paying For Dental Treatment When You Don’t Have Insurance

Colkmire DentistryUncategorized

  • Have you ever delayed or canceled dental treatment due to lack of insurance?
  • Is the thought of a regular six-month teeth cleaning completely foreign to you?
  • Is your plan for dental treatment essentially to wait until there’s an emergency with your teeth to go to the dentist (and hope that emergency never happens)?
  • Do you have a certain sinking feeling about your teeth or gums, but don’t feel like you have the resources to get it checked out?

If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you might be wondering just how you can get the dental work that you need. After all, if you can’t afford insurance, how can you possibly afford the dental treatment itself?

According to a survey by the American Dental Association, in 2012, 34 percent of working-age American adults did not have dental benefits. This number goes to almost 65 percent for seniors age 65 and older.

Not having dental coverage feels paralyzing, debilitating, and even isolating. You’re not getting to participate in one of the basic services that most people in society enjoy. So what if there were some creative ways that you could still obtain needed dental work?

What may surprise you is that you don’t actually need insurance in order to go to the dentist and afford the care of your teeth. We have become so accustomed to having insurance for all of our health-related care that it’s easy to forget that it’s not actually a prerequisite. Here are some ideas and out-of-the-box solutions that you can pick from in order to give your teeth the treatment they need. Try them out and see which ones work for you.


Treat dental work like all the other things in life that you don’t have insurance for.

  • People don’t have an insurance plan to buy a vehicle that costs thousands of dollars
  • People typically spend more per year on their hair (haircuts, styling products, etc.) than on their teeth, yet teeth are the feature that people tend to notice before they notice your hair.

Crowdsource the funds you need for fixing your teeth

  • If you need dental work that’s long overdue, and you haven’t been able to afford it, it’s possible that all of your friends and family want you to be able to get it, too. They may just be waiting to know that you want it just as badly (because sometimes it’s easy to assume that if a person hasn’t taken care of something for a long time, they might not even want to.) Start your go-fund-me campaign and see how it turns out–you don’t have anything to lose!

Start your own “insurance” fund

  • Get a quote from a dental insurance carrier, and then, instead of buying the coverage, put that amount of money into a savings account every month, so that you can use it to pay for your teeth cleaning. Caution: If you never have a dental emergency, this method can turn out cheaper than carrying insurance, but if you do have a dental emergency, carrying insurance would be cheaper.

Buy insurance

  • Many cell phone plans cost approximately the same amount as dental coverage for an individual, so it might be more affordable than you think.

Count on Joshua Colkmire and our Saratoga dentist office to get you the dental treatment you need.Contact us today at Sarasota Dental Office for your appointment.