Dr. Vanstrom recently sat down and reviewed his fee schedule at Artistic Dentistry of Atlanta. He took random samplings of patient insurance coverages from a variety of our most common procedures that we perform while caring for the overall health of our patients. He reviewed indemnity insured patients as well and those with PPO insurance plans.
Dental Cleaning: The Prophy:
In our blog, “Dental Prophy vs Deep Cleaning” we discuss the definition of different ‘above the gums’ and ‘below the gums’ dental cleanings. Here I want to discuss the fee that we charge for a dental prophy, also known as a routine teeth cleaning. I must clarify something first: there are no “routine dental procedures” at Artistic Dentistry of Atlanta.
The antibacterial medicaments, the teeth cleaning technology and the comforts that we provide set us apart for your dental cleaning. Most important is the combined 40 plus years of dental teeth and gum care experience that our hygienists, Kathy and Kerri, bring as an added value for the overall health of all of our patients.
Our current fee for a dental cleaning, or prophy, is $112.00. That fee is not simply selected by throwing darts at a board. Dr. Vanstrom spends hours reviewing national averages and fee schedules from several reputable sources. He also lectures to other dental offices all across the country. When he lectures, he reviews fees with his clients in order to further confirm the fairness of all of the dental fees at Artistic Dentistry of Atlanta.
Finally, he reviews insurance estimates of benefits (EOBs). Recently he reviewed the amounts paid by a variety of dental insurance companies for our patients who had a prophy. Out of 40 patients, he found that $93.00 was the average amount paid by the dental insurance companies.
If we look closer at the fee we see that the mean for our fees is actually closer to $97.00. That is because there were several patients who comparatively had very poor insurance coverage for a routine teeth cleaning. The low insurance coverages were as low as $49.00. The high insurance coverage amounts were $112.00, which was 100% full coverage of our prophy fee.
We actually just rolled back fees to our 2013 prices as a benefit to our patients. Based on our revised fees, our patients on average have very little to no out of pocket cost for the most thorough dental cleaning in the city.
We here at Artistic Dentistry of Atlanta appreciate greatly our patients who entrust us with their dental health. Dr. Vanstrom hopes that our patients appreciate in turn our efforts to continually be fair with our dental fees for all of our patients, insured and uninsured alike.
