Should I pay?
The National Health Service (NHS)
Although everyone is entitled to treatment by an NHS dentist, finding one isn’t easy: in some towns, there isn’t a single dentist willing to take on new NHS patients. About one in seven dentistry lists is closed to adults, one in ten to children, and this number is expected to increase following the new NHS dental contracts that were introduced in April 2006.
So the first step is, if you don’t have one, try to find an NHS dentist. Most don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages, so contact your local Primary Care Trust, visit NHS or call NHS Direct on 0845 46 47. Additionally, word-of-mouth is usually best, so ask friends and family whether they would recommend their current dentist.
As always, children, pregnant women and people receiving means-tested benefits will still receive free treatment. For others though, the Government’s contract with dentists introduced in April 2006, means the maximum cost of NHS dental treatment is set to fall.
In England, NHS dental charges now fall into three cost bands, with the cost of basic treatments such as scaling and polishing £15.50; intermediate treatment such as fillings or extractions cost £42.40; and complicated work such as bridges, crowns or dentures cost £189.
Get cover through your employer
Some employers include private dental cover in their menu of employee benefits, so it’s worth checking to see if you can get this protection from your firm (or from your spouse’s or partner’s firm).
If your employer pays for your insurance, you will pay tax of up to 40% on it as a “benefit in kindâ€Â, but this is still miles cheaper than paying it yourself. Even if you do have to shell out yourself, it may work out cheaper than buying an individual policy, because, thanks to their buying power, large organisations can secure sizeable discounts on dental insurance.  Yet this doesn’t always work out cheapest, so first find out what your company’s scheme will cost you then compare it to the result using the next two steps below.
Step 2: Find the cheapest private dental insurance scheme
Dental insurance simply means if you have a problem then you are covered for private work done on your teeth. The advantages of dental insurance are that you can sign up with any dentist and you don’t have your teeth inspected before being accepted for cover. Hence, for people with less-than-perfect teeth, buying insurance is a good option. However, some insurance policies make you wait, say, three to six months before you can make a claim, so check carefully before signing on the dotted line.
What’s included
Insurance plans cover general dental treatment, injuries and emergency work, plus serious oral diseases, however cosmetic dentistry is excluded, so don’t expect your policy to pay for teeth whitening, porcelain veneers or dental implants!
Many dental insurance policies operate on a co-insurance basis, which means that you have to pay a proportion of your treatment costs, say a quarter of all spending up to a limit of £500 a year. Thus, as well as paying your premium, you also contribute to the cost of your treatment.
Finding the cheapest
How much you pay for medical insurance largely depends on the level of benefits you can receive (most plans come in gold / silver / bronze-type categories) and the number of family members insured. Even so, there are dozens of different plans to choose from, and premiums vary widely.
Also, as with private medical treatment, the cost of, and demand for, private dental treatment increases with age, so older people should be especially keen to double-check every policy.
Start via using commercial comparison website Insuresupermarket* which will compare 35 different policies based on your criteria. It’s a great place to get an initial price for a benchmark. Unfortunately though it isn’t foolproof, the website makes its money by being paid a lead fee from the insurers if you choose to get a product, so what is included depends on its commercial relationships, so some insurers are missed out – even so 35 policies in one speedy go isn’t to be sniffed out.
To do a full belt and braces comparison, then the main non-included players are Denplan, plus Bupa* CIGNA and WPA*, it’s worth looking at those too.
Step 3: Take this price and compare it to the other options
Now you’ve found the cheapest privately insured plan for you, it’s worth comparing it to the other available options:
* Pay as you go. Private dentistry isn’t cheap: some private dentists charge four times as much as an NHS dentist would for similar treatment. For example, a routine examination with scale and polish can cost £50, as can a single filling.
About three-quarters of all private dental treatment is paid for on a “fee per item†basis, with the patient directly paying the dental practice, so most of us get by quite happily without insurance. Furthermore, if your teeth naturally look like Tom Cruise’s or Jennifer Aniston’s and don’t visit the dentist very often, paying hundreds of pounds a year for dental insurance is money down the drain.
If that’s the case then PAYG is a good deal. However those likely to need regular treatment should avoid it, as either you’ll pay a whack or you’ll feel discouraged from going to the dentist due to the cost and this could damage your teeth.
If you are in need of major private treatment for your teeth, one option to reduce the cost is dental tourism. This means finding a dentist overseas who’s a lot cheaper and getting it done there, and why not combine it with a nice trip too, perhaps to Cyprus, Hungary or Turkey? Fangs for the holiday!
* Self-Insure.  One sensible alternative to buying dental cover is to self-insure. Instead of paying £20 a month for dental insurance, stash away the same amount in a high-interest savings account (see Instant Access Saving article). When you need to make a “claimâ€Â, use this cash pot as a Pay as you go (see above) to pay for your treatment. As an added bonus, if you don’t need any treatment, you get to hang on to your cash and the accrued interest, too!
* Use a healthcare cash plan. Rather than buy a tailored dental insurance policy, you could cover some of the costs of private dental treatment with a healthcare cash plan.
Healthcare cash plans are a good low cost way to cover dental costs. With these little publicised schemes, if you pay for NHS or private treatments for a range of things, like osteopathy, hospital stays, dental or optical treatments, you can reclaim the cash up to set limits. These plans are best for those likely to claim for other treatments too. For full details see the Best Healthcare Cashplan Providers article.
* Get cover through your dentist. Many dentists encourage private patients (especially new patients) to sign up to ‘capitation’ plans, which spread the cost of your dental care over a year. The biggest provider of these schemes is Denplan, which has signed up 6,500 dentists (roughly a third of all UK dentists) and has 1½ million registered patients.
Here a dentist will inspect your teeth and place you in one of five categories from ‘A’ to ‘E’, with ‘A’ being the cheapest and ‘E’ the most expensive. Film-star teeth will gain you treasured ‘A’ band status, but if your teeth are like a decayed picket fence around an ancient graveyard, you’ll find yourself in band ‘E’!  So manky teethed MoneySavers will be much better off with the dental insurance plan, where no check is done.
Just like Private Medical Insurance (PMI) plans, these schemes will cover all routing procedures excluding cosmetic dentistry. Budget capitation plans are also available, which only cover routine and preventative work, such as examinations, hygiene treatment and x-rays, but not more expensive treatments.
The problem with capitation plans unlike private dental insurance is that you’re tied to a particular dentist and pay the same fixed amount (an average of £192 a year), regardless of how much treatment you actually receive. So, if your dental hygiene is good and you only see your dentist for occasional check-ups, you’re subsidising snaggletooths!