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.
Porcelain Fused to Metal Crowns (PFM):
We prepare crowns to help patients save their teeth. We want to give all of our patients the opportunity to keep their teeth and gums healthy for a lifetime.
Our current fee for a PFM crown is $1267.00. 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 PFM. Out of 40 patients, he found that $602.00 was the average amount paid by the dental insurance companies.
If we look closer at the fees we see that the mean coverage for our PFM fee is actually closer to $640.00. That is because there were a few patients who comparatively had very poor insurance coverage for a PFM. The low insurance coverages were as low as $263.00 and $281.00. The high insurance coverage amounts were $728.00 and $979.00. These coverages were well over the standard 50% coverage for PFM crowns.
Remember, our fee is $1267.00. Standard 50% coverage is $633.50. We actually just rolled back fees to our 2013 prices as a benefit to our patients. The vast majority of our patients in our insurance coverage review had 50% coverage of $630.00 for their PFM crowns.
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.
