What type of insurance does the practice take?
We will be happy to work with most dental insurance programs and process your forms at no charge. We will accept assignment of benefits for the portion covered by insurance and will help you make financial arrangements for your personal balance.
We are an out of network provider. Our business office staff will assist you in determining what portion of your treatment is covered by insurance. We will strive to help you obtain your maximum benefits by prompt and efficient processing of your claims. When questions arise regarding your insurance, please feel free to ask. Please bring your insurance card or papers on the first visit. We will help you in every way possible. Please understand that you are ultimately responsible for payment of all services. Should your insurance not cover what is predicted, you will be responsible to pay any uncovered portion.
Does the practice offer financing?
We are sensitive to the financial concerns of our patients. Most dental insurance programs simply don’t cover some or all of the treatments you and your family may require. Drs. Scheinfeld, Tourial & Lubell has developed financing services that help meet these expenses. Speak to our patient services coordinator to find out how we can help develop solutions to your financial concerns so that you may receive the treatment that you need.
What are my payment options?
We accept most major credit cards (MasterCard, Visa, American Express & Discover). For your convenience, we will also assist you with billing your insurance for your treatment plan at no additional cost to you.
If you have more financial questions…
Our Patient and Insurance Coordinator will be happy to answer any of your financial questions. She can be reached by calling our Sandy Springs, GA dentist’s office at 404-256-3620 . If you would like to contact her by email at info@rightsmilecenter.com.
Click on the title (link) above to read this insightful article by Dr. Hal Scherz, who is a pediatric urologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Putting the dots together can be a very scary premise, but a realistic one. Insurance companies are already raising premiums with increasing benefits and hospitals are acquiring medical practices.
A denied dental procedure does not mean the procedure wasn’t necessary. It just means your insurance carrier won’t cover it as a benefit of your plan. Limitations in an employer’s group policy most likely result in these noncovered procedures. This is a huge problem for your healthcare provider, because your care provider is trying to do what you need and not what is paid for by your insurance carrier. To compound these denials, some policies are designed such that they do not allow the dentist charge you for certain procedures. However, that does not mean your dentist can avoid the procedure because it may be absolutely necessary as a part of your treatment. This scenario has left your dentist wondering whether or not you will pay for the services being rendered because your insurance carrier is denying a necessary procedure and lack of patient understanding. And finally, this scenario has left your dentist perplexed as to how to overcome the perception by patients that they are not being honest with them.
The solution is patient ‘push back’ for the coverage you’re entitled to. Patients need to question, if not challenge the benefits they have paid for but have been denied. And patients need to recognize that the contractual relationship is between you and your insurance provider, not your dentist and your insurance provider. Your dentist has absolutely not leverage with your insurance carrier.
Hopefully, this is a little helpful in understanding the difficulties in receiving your full insurance benefits. If we can answer any of your concerns or questions, please feel free to contact us.
Why the cost of your dental care really hasn’t increased that much? In fact it has either tracked or lagged behind the consumer price index and this is despite all the advances in dental technology. Compare that observation to your medical care costs. If you go in to see your dentist and ask for an estimated cost of treatment, 9 times out of 10 you will get a quote. Try doing that in your physician’s office. Why? Because your dental care has been a product of the free market system. The insurance companies have never yet to invade the purview of your oral health the way they have dominated, if not destroyed your overall health care.
You get your teeth examined, cancer screening, teeth cleaning and x-rays twice a year for less than $300.00. And that’s about two hours of actual treatment from your dentist and his/her team. At the physician’s office you go in once a year, see your physician or his PA for about 10 to 16[i] minutes on average and it costs $300 to $900.00, depending on possible immunizations and your blood work (which costs more than twice what an independent lab charges if you have it done outside of your physician’s office). Physicians are paid by insurance and Medicare submittals based on the procedures they perform and not by the amount of time they spend with you. So the quicker the visit the more procedures they can bill your insurance. If they take too long it cost them money, not you. And all their revenues are based on negotiated fees with your insurance company, not the free market system. Ah, the key phrase – free market system. Dentistry never bought into insurance coverage for your treatment and care, and as a result of the free market system there has been a reasonable or to put it better, a withstandable increase to the cost of your oral health care based on the supply and demand curves.
So how much does insurance influence the cost of your health care? Anecdotally, let me tell you about my daughter’s, but really my experience with health care and why we are the losers in this battle to secure adequate health care treatment at an affordable price. My daughter had a cyst under her eyelid. It was not visible to you or me, but it irritated the dickens to her cornea. I found a specialist and accompanied my daughter to the physician. It was determined that the treatment required general anesthesia to safely perform the surgery. When I asked ‘how much’, I received no answer. I was passed on to the patient coordinator for that physician. So I asked ‘how much’, and again I received no answer. They didn’t have a clue what this was going to cost me. So I immediately said ‘sign me up, I’ll take two’. Seriously though, they needed my insurance carrier and they would let me know, great.
I get a call from the physician’s office. It’s going to cost you $800 and change. Ok, great, and is that my drive out price? ‘Oh no, that’s just the doctor’s fee.’ Ok, so what else? I have to call the surgical center. Ok, how much does that cost? We [the doctor] don’t know, you just have to call and find out. So I called. The gentleman quoted me $1540.00 including 2 hours of facility and the anesthesiologist. ‘Oh, and you won’t be needing a biopsy, since this is cosmetic.’ No wait, this is not cosmetic, it’s required surgery. So the gentleman backs up and re-quotes the price. It will be $4 to 7 thousand for the surgical suite, $1800 & change for the anesthesiologist and X amount of dollars for the biopsy.
Wait, hold on, back up a minute, you just quoted me a price that is almost 7 times what the same procedure would cost if it was elective surgery. Ah, that key phrase creeps back in to the conversation. Under a free market system, elective surgery only garners what the market will bear. But under an insurance based system, physicians don’t know what it costs, so they inflate the costs and hope for some remuneration equal to or in excess of what it really costs under a free market system to treat you. In other words, it’s a crap-shoot your physician is playing with your health insurance company. And the loser is you. So the next time you go to the physician or the dentist, remember why you’re paying what to whom, the physician or your insurance company. And the next time you discuss health care reform; you’re probably talking about insurance reform. If we can answer your questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Why the cost of your dental care really hasn’t increased that much? In fact it has either tracked or lagged behind the consumer price index and this is despite all the advances in dental
technology. Compare that observation to your medical care costs. If you go in to see your dentist and ask for an estimated cost of treatment, 9 times out of 10 you will get a quote. Try doing that in your physician’s office. Why? Because your dental care has been a product of the free market system. The insurance companies have never yet to invade the purview of your oral health the way they have dominated, if not destroyed your overall health care.
You get your teeth examined, cancer screening, teeth cleaning and x-rays twice a year for less than $300.00. And that’s about two hours of actual treatment from your dentist and his/her team. At the physician’s office you go in once a year, see your physician or his PA for about 10 to 16[i] minutes on average and it costs $300 to $900.00, depending on possible immunizations and your blood work (which costs more than twice what an independent lab charges if you have it done outside of your physician’s office). Physicians are paid by insurance and Medicare submittals based on the procedures they
perform and not by the amount of time they spend with you. So the quicker the visit the more procedures they can bill your insurance. If they take too long it cost them money, not you. And all their revenues are based on negotiated fees with your insurance company, not the free market system. Ah,
the key phrase – free market system. Dentistry never bought into insurance coverage for your treatment and care, and as a result of the free market system there has been a reasonable or to put it better, a withstandable increase to the cost of your oral health care based on the supply and demand curves.
So how much does insurance influence the cost of your health care? Anecdotally, let me tell you about my daughter’s, but really my experience with health care and why we are the losers in this battle to secure adequate health care treatment at an affordable price. My daughter had a cyst under her eyelid. It was not visible to you or me, but it irritated the dickens to her cornea. I found a specialist and accompanied my daughter to the physician. It was determined that the treatment required general anesthesia to safely perform the surgery. When I asked ‘how much’, I received no answer. I was passed on to the patient coordinator for that physician. So I asked ‘how much’, and again I received no answer. They didn’t have a clue what this was going to cost me. So I immediately said ‘sign me up, I’ll take two’. Seriously though, they needed my insurance carrier and they would let me know, great.
I get a call from the physician’s office. It’s going to cost you $800 and change. Ok, great, and is that my drive out price? ‘Oh no, that’s just the doctor’s fee.’ Ok, so what else? I have to call the surgical center. Ok, how much does that cost? We [the doctor] don’t know, you just have to call and find out. So I called. The gentleman quoted me $1540.00 including 2 hours of facility and the anesthesiologist. ‘Oh, and you won’t be needing a biopsy, since this is cosmetic.’ No wait, this is not cosmetic, it’s required surgery. So the gentleman backs up and re-quotes the price. It will be $4 to 7 thousand for the surgical suite, $1800 & change for the anesthesiologist and X amount of dollars for the biopsy.
Wait, hold on, back up a minute, you just quoted me a price that is almost 7 times what the same procedure would cost if it was elective surgery. Ah, that key phrase creeps back in to the conversation. Under a free market system, elective surgery only garners what the market will bear. But under an insurance based system, physicians don’t know what it costs, so they inflate the costs and hope for some remuneration equal to or in excess of what it really costs under a free market system to treat you. In other words, it’s a crap-shoot your physician is playing with your health insurance company. And the loser is you. So the next time you go to the physician or the dentist, remember why you’re paying what to whom, the physician or your insurance company. And the next time you discuss health care reform; you’re probably talking about insurance reform. If we can answer your questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Why the cost of your dental care really hasn’t increased that much? In fact it has either tracked or lagged behind the consumer price index and this is despite all the advances in dental technology. Compare that observation to your medical care costs. If you go in to see your dentist and ask for an estimated cost of treatment, 9 times out of 10 you will get a quote. Try doing that in your physician’s office. Why? Because your dental care has been a product of the free market system. The insurance companies have never yet to invade the purview of your oral health the way they have dominated, if not destroyed your overall health care.
You get your teeth examined, cancer screening, teeth cleaning and x-rays twice a year for less than $300.00. And that’s about two hours of actual treatment from your dentist and his/her team. At the physician’s office you go in once a year, see your physician or his PA for about 10 to 16[i] minutes on average and it costs $300 to $900.00, depending on possible immunizations and your blood work (which costs more than twice what an independent lab charges if you have it done outside of your physician’s office). Physicians are paid by insurance and Medicare submittals based on the procedures they perform and not by the amount of time they spend with you. So the quicker the visit the more procedures they can bill your insurance. If they take too long it cost them money, not you. And all their revenues are based on negotiated fees with your insurance company, not the free market system. Ah, the key phrase – free market system. Dentistry never bought into insurance coverage for your treatment and care, and as a result of the free market system there has been a reasonable or to put it better, a withstandable increase to the cost of your oral health care based on the supply and demand curves.
So how much does insurance influence the cost of your health care? Anecdotally, let me tell you about my daughter’s, but really my experience with health care and why we are the losers in this battle to secure adequate health care treatment at an affordable price. My daughter had a cyst under her eyelid. It was not visible to you or me, but it irritated the dickens to her cornea. I found a specialist and accompanied my daughter to the physician. It was determined that the treatment required general anesthesia to safely perform the surgery. When I asked ‘how much’, I received no answer. I was passed on to the patient coordinator for that physician. So I asked ‘how much’, and again I received no answer. They didn’t have a clue what this was going to cost me. So I immediately said ‘sign me up, I’ll take two’. Seriously though, they needed my insurance carrier and they would let me know, great. I get a call from the physician’s office. It’s going to cost you $800 and change. Ok, great, and is that my drive out price? ‘Oh no, that’s just the doctor’s fee.’ Ok, so what else? I have to call the surgical center. Ok, how much does that cost? We [the doctor] don’t know, you just have to call and find out. So I called. The gentleman quoted me $1540.00 including 2 hours of facility and the anesthesiologist. ‘Oh, and you won’t be needing a biopsy, since this is cosmetic.’ No wait, this is not cosmetic, it’s required surgery. So the gentleman backs up and re-quotes the price. It will be $4 to 7 thousand for the surgical suite, $1800 & change for the anesthesiologist and X amount of dollars for the biopsy.
Wait, hold on, back up a minute, you just quoted me a price that is almost 7 times what the same procedure would cost if it was elective surgery. Ah, that key phrase creeps back in to the conversation. Under a free market system, elective surgery only garners what the market will bear. But under an insurance based system, physicians don’t know what it costs, so they inflate the costs and hope for some remuneration equal to or in excess of what it really costs under a free market system to treat you. In other words, it’s a crap-shoot your physician is playing with your health insurance company. And the loser is you. So the next time you go to the physician or the dentist, remember why you’re paying what to whom, the physician or your insurance company. And the next time you discuss health care reform; you’re probably talking about insurance reform. If we can answer your questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
You should see your dentist for regular cleanings and check-ups at least every six months. There are those who are at greater risk for oral diseases and other related health issues that should have dental cleanings and check-ups more than twice a year, such as, diabetes, periodontal (gum) disease, possible heart disease, pregnancies and in rare instances alcohol and tobacco users. Poor oral hygiene and certain medical conditions are some of the many factors that your dentist takes into consideration when deciding how often you need your dental cleaning and check-ups. One of the real problems that has invaded oral healthcare are the restrictions placed on insurance coverage by insurers. You need to understand that insurance companies serve a self-interest in reducing the number to times you visit your dentist. Try not to let what your insurance covers be your benchmark for your healthcare.
Going on a regular basis will help to keep your oral health on track as well as detect any early problems such as periodontal disease, oral cancer or cavities. The best way to maintain good oral health is to visit your dentist on a regular basis coupled with brushing your teeth and drinking fluoridated water.
And like I always say ‘the best toothbrush is the one you use’. So please, if we can help feel free to call us.
