Can I add my Mom as a dependent on my dental insurance?

Check out the discount program "DentalSave." They have a website. We live on the east coast and our dentist's office participates in this plan. The savings are significant. There is an annual enrollment fee of about $80 for seniors. When we see the dental hygienist, the bill comes to $60.00 instead of $110.00 and I must go every 4 months for a routine cleaning. Hope this helps.

Medi-Cal has started to cover dental in 2015. Call the social worker.

Again, where do you live? Any where near Maryland? My oral surgeon does some pro bono work.

If by any chance your father was a vet, the VA does have a dental program. I haven't investigated all the details yet but we're going to consider it.

My oral surgeon does some pro bono work. Where do you live?

You probably cannot get her on your insurance policy--so talk to your private dentist. I know mine would work with us in this type of a situation. Privately paying (which we have had to do once or twice over the years when we didn't have dental and had 5 kids.....) he'd work with us on pricing. Paying in cash saved us a lot..also, sounds like your mom will need an implant or bridge--the dentist has to charge what the actual new tooth will cost as he has to pay the ceramist's fee. I'm sure you can work out a kind of payment plan. Ferris is right, CareCredit can set up a 6 months no-interest plan. A crown alone will cost about $800, if she needs more, well, you already seem to know costs! It's just expensive!

The credit card Care Credit will pay for dental, cosmetic procedures, vet bills, and hearing aids. Synchrony (formerly GE capital) has a deferred payment program for bills over $250 without interest if you pay it off in one year. Also, check to see if you have a college dental program in your area that charges less. Implants are very expensive, take many months for the procedure to be completed, bridges are also costly (especially for a front tooth - I know since I have one), but find a dentist who will take payments too. Good luck!

Medicare covers having dentures done & maybe work done after a trauma or some anethesia costs but otherwise dental is all private pay. Medicaid covers preventive for kids but usually nothing for adults.

For your current dental plan, call them. We have Delta Dental and a pretty good policy within the various delta plans & they require that those covered are legal dependents and # of dependents increases the monthly premium. If you haven't priced dental, the cost is pretty high. I've found that dentists if you don't have a better dental insurance to begin with will require payment in full upfront before starting treatment plan or you sign off to a financing plan.

For my mom, she did thousands of $$ in spend down in dental work before going into a NH. Implants, gum work, couple root canals & crowns. Got rid of all the old style bridges. She was late 80's & early 90's getting all this done. There was only 2 endodondists who would even consider her due to her age that we could find & mom was still totally good on her ADLs and competent & had the $ to private pay. You may find your moms age & health may be a factor in her even getting scheduled for care to begin with. My moms general dentist office did a lot of calls and referral requests to get her in to see the specialists. If you have a good general DDS you go to, perhaps call their office to set up an evaluation of mom and get their thought as to whether speciality dental work is even feasible for mom. If she has heart issues, copd or diabetes, a lot of dentists won't take her as a new patient.

Hate to say this but if they live long enough, they will loose teeth as part of the aging process. For my mom, front tooth implant maybe 3K, 4 visits and involved anesthesia. If I'm remembering correctly part of the anesthia costs were paid by Medicare but could be that the dentist was a DMD oral surgeon affiliated with UT Heath science center so could run it that way. If there are gum issues those need to be taken care of first & those are painful with a good bit of recovery time in which they have to be religiously doing salt water rinses & flossing.

Good luck & let us know what you find out.

Try the AHS College of Alameda dental school to see if they can help her, or the UCSF school of dentistry.

Also, you may wish to contact your dental plan and ask them.

I highly doubt it. Most employer-sponsored health insurance is pretty restrictive. That said, here is a link to some info regarding this:

http://thelawdictionary.org/article/can-you-claim-your-parents-as-dependents-for-health-insurance-and-tax-purposes/

Another option may be to contact your local university's dental school (if you have one nearby). Most patients are seen by dental students but are highly supervised by qualified dentist/doctors. My 86-year old Mom does this and it is much cheaper than seeing a private practicing dentist.