Use It Or Lose It – Are Your Dental Benefits Expiring December 31?

By Nancy Kennedy

As we approach the end of 2021, we wanted to remind you to take full advantage of any dental insurance benefits you may have remaining for the year: If you don’t use them, you lose them! Many patients don't realize that most dental insurance benefits expire and reset every year, usually on December 31, (but please check with your plan for exceptions). Because you may not know about this, you might accidentally let hundreds or thousands of dollars’ worth of benefits go back into the insurance company’s bank account.

While treatment is never dictated by insurance, you can utilize your dental benefits wisely, especially when it comes to larger treatment plans such as dental implants. Many times implants can be placed in one fiscal year and, due to 3-6 month healing times, crowns can be placed in the next year to better maximize your benefits!! And right now is the time to schedule to get this started!

Dr. Joseph Gareca has been placing dental implants at Valley Brook Dental, LLC for the last 15 years. His passion is to use dental implants to help patients connect with something that they lost: missing teeth, the ability to chew, and a confident smile! Our goal with every one of our patients is to help you enjoy optimal oral health because we want you to look & feel good and have healthy teeth & gums for life.

To accomplish this in the facial esthetic zone requires a degree of expertise that only comes from experience. This is especially important with dental implants. Dental implants are a great way to replace missing teeth and offer a fixed solution for removable partial or complete dentures giving you a result that is esthetically pleasing. To accomplish this Dr. Gurecka utilizes some of the most advanced techniques (such as PRP/PRF) for dental implant placement and bone regeneration to achieve lasting results while simplifying the procedure and increasing the reliability of the treatment. Sometimes a patient with a broken tooth or a fractured root can have the tooth removed and the implant placed at the same time, even with a temporary crown to fill the space in their smile! You can learn more about the dental implant process or on our website. Please visit: valleybrookdental.com/procedures/dental-implants/ for even more information.

To keep up with this rapidly changing field Dr. Gurecka completed a nine month Implant program at Augusta University in Georgia, home to the Georgia Dental School. There he was trained by some of the leaders in Dental Implant Education and completed almost 400 hours of continuing education through the American Association of Implant Dentists (AAID). In 2019 he passed the written AAID Fellowship Exam and then flew to Chicago to submit actual cases for peer review and an oral examination which he passed and in September was inducted as an Associate Fellow in the AAID.

Make sure you call NOW!! Dental offices get booked up at the end of the year!! You can schedule an appointment at Valley Brook Dental online or call us 724-942-8982 at your convenience to schedule.