A Beautiful Practice For All Your Dental Needs
Facility
We are proud to provide a state-of-the-art facility for the highest quality dental care available. It is one of our top priorities to protect the well-being of our valued patients. For this reason, our office meets and surpasses all OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and CDC (Center for Disease Control) standards. We are confident that you will feel right at home in our office as we welcome all patients as if they were family.
Appointments
If you would like to make an appointment, please contact our office by phone or email.. Our office facilitates communications and emergency calls and appointments are available and welcome, especially for new patients seeking help.
Cancellation
If you are unable to keep an appointment, we ask that you kindly provide us with at least 24 hours notice. We ask for this advance notice so that we can offer this appointment to another patient. A fee may be charged if a patient does not show up for an appointment without sufficient notice. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing our practice for your dental care.
Financials & Insurance
At Sequatchie Valley Dental Associates we are happy to help you work with your dental insurance company. While we may accept assignment from your insurance company, we do require payment of the estimated balance at the time of treatment.
If you have dental insurance a percentage of some treatments may be covered, but every plan is different. Though dental procedures (and overhead costs) have changed dramatically in the past 30 years, insurance benefits and yearly maximums have stayed exactly the same. Financing arrangements may be available, such as lines of credit that are designed specifically for medical and dental treatment.
We also accept MasterCard, Visa, and Discover as well as your personal check or cash. Additionally, we offer no interest financing through CareCredit or Citi Health Card.
About Dental Insurance
We will give you an estimate of costs required in advance of treatment so that you can come prepared for each visit. Once again, the best surprise is no surprise!
Concerning Dental Insurance...
Sequatchie Valley Dental Associates will bill your insurance company for payment under these guidelines. It is important for you to know that our professional services are rendered and charged directly to you-not an insurance company. We work 100% for you, not for them. Dental insurance plans pay only a portion of your treatment, and we urge you to be fully aware of the provisions of your dental co-Financials & Insurance. We will file your dental claim if we can confirm your coverage in advance, but all charges for that claim will be payable by you if your insurance company has failed to make their payment within 60 days of being properly billed. We are pleased to have an opportunity to provide the highest quality dentistry possible in an open and honest environment based on truth and trust. We will do everything we can to live up to the standards you expect and deserve from us as professionals. Our fees reflect the quality of service and the care with which it was delivered.
We are pleased that you have a dental co-payment insurance policy. (Co-payment means your insurance company will pay some, but not all, of your treatment.) We will do everything we can to help you maximize your benefits on a yearly basis. We ask you to keep several important facts in mind.
When dental insurance plans first began in 1970, they allowed $1000 per year in benefits. The vast majority of plans today still only provide $1000 per year in benefits. (Yours might be more or less than this, but the majority still has this same yearly amount.) In other words, reflecting for a 6% per year inflation, the typical $1000 benefit per year as seen back in 1970, is now equal to $176.84 in today's dollars.
Had the various insurance companies increased their benefit on a year-by-year basis reflecting increases for inflation, that typical $1000 benefit would now be worth $5111.69 per year!! It is interesting to note that although benefits have not kept pace with inflation, your premiums have certainly gone up. The bottom line is that your yearly benefit has shrunk over the years even though you're paying more to the insurance company for it. A completed claim form will be filed as each phase of treatment is completed. We ask you understand that we neither work for the insurance companies, nor do we wish to. We work 100% FOR YOU! Your benefit package is a result of the transaction between your employer, or union, and the insurance company that sold the plan.
We will do our utmost to see that you receive the maximum benefits from your company's program, but keep in mind that most plans only provide for minimum, average care. In other words, they want you to do the absolute minimum and least desirable treatment that will still get you out the door. Sometimes, an insurance company will state that the fee charged by the dentist was over the "UCR" of the policy, (the usual, customary, and reasonable fee). This does not mean that the fee charged by the dentist was excessive; it simply means that because of the contract your employer arranged with the insurance company (and the amount of money they were willing to pay in premiums), they are only willing to pay for a minimal amount of care. They are in business to make money. Excellence in care rarely comes under the dictates of "average, or usual". Our obligation is to YOU. We will offer to you what we feel is dental care tailored to YOUR particular needs, irregardless of what the insurance company may be willing to provide. We do not let them dictate your dental care.
