Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Why Make It Easy, When It Can Be Hard Instead?

Danielle has to have all four of her wisdom teeth out.

So here is today's installment in the "why make it easy, when it can be hard, instead" category.

Our state-sponsored medical insurance will pay for her wisdom teeth to come out, which is terrific news.  Unfortunately, they will only pay for two extractions at a time.  Even though the dentist and the oral surgeon agreed that all four wisdom teeth must come out*, the state will only allow two to be extracted at a time.

So instead of sedating the kid once, yanking all the teeth, and getting it done all in one procedure, the state has to waste money and pay for two sedations.

Even stupider, each extraction has to be done six months apart.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

And here's where it gets even stupider:  Not only will the state only authorize for two teeth to be removed during a single surgery, it is illegal for the oral surgeon to pull all four and charge us the difference. As a result, the only way we would be able to have all of Danielle's teeth to be extracted in a single setting would be to pony up all the money and pay a private oral surgeon for the entire operation.

Crazy.

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* The oral surgeon claimed that her mouth was a "textbook case" where a kid needed to have all wisdom teeth out.

2 comments:

  1. I know! It makes no sense!

    Is there any chance the dentist will pull all 4 at once, and then bill for 2/2, 6 months apart?

    Some practioners will do and some won't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sadly, no. Around these parts it would be considered fraud and the dentist could get in serious trouble for it.

      Delete

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