Dental Implants and Insurance

What insurance does, and does not, do here

We file claims on your behalf for the portions your plan covers. That is worth saying first, because plenty of implant-only practices do not.

You have a choice about where the money lands. We can assign the benefit directly to the practice, so it comes off what you owe us; or you can pay us the full price and we refund you whatever the insurer pays once it arrives. Either way the amount is the same — it is a question of cash flow and which you find simpler. Tell us which you prefer at the consultation.

It is worth saying second that this will rarely be the thing that decides your affordability. Dental plans are built around routine care: cleanings, fillings, the occasional crown. The annual maximum on a typical policy sits somewhere around one to two thousand dollars, a figure that has barely moved in decades, and full-arch implant treatment is an order of magnitude above it. Many plans also classify implants as a major service subject to a waiting period, and some exclude them by name.

It is worth being plain about what dental cover is designed for. It is a preventative benefit: it exists to keep people in regular hygiene care, and it meets the cost of larger work only partly, if at all. That is not a criticism of your plan — it is what the product is.

Where it earns its keep for implant patients is usually after the surgery. Implants and a fixed prosthesis still need professional maintenance for the rest of their life: periodic hygiene visits, the prosthesis removed and cleaned, the fit and the tissue checked. Those recall visits sit squarely in what a dental plan is built to pay for, and for most patients they are the part insurance covers best. If you are weighing whether to keep a policy through treatment, that is the reason to.

So the useful way to think about insurance here is as a partial offset against a known number — not as the mechanism that makes treatment possible. What makes it possible, for most of our patients, is the combination of a price that does not move and a financing term that fits the monthly budget.

Making the most of the plan you have

Bring your insurance details to the free consultation. We will look at what your policy covers and tell you what can be filed, rather than guessing at it in advance — two patients with the same insurer and different employers routinely have different benefits.

A few things are worth knowing before you come. Benefits that go unused generally do not roll over, so a plan year that is nearly over is a plan year about to be wasted. Treatment staged across two arches can sometimes be arranged to fall either side of a plan year boundary. FSA funds frequently expire at year end, and HSA funds do not — which changes the timing calculus considerably.

None of that is advice about your particular policy, and we are not in a position to interpret your plan documents for you. It is the set of questions worth putting to your administrator before you decide when to start.

All-inclusive pricing, whatever your plan does

Every treatment we offer has a published price that covers the whole of it: the 3D CBCT scan, the sedation, extraction of remaining teeth, routine grafting, the abutments and the final restoration. There is no separate imaging bill, no anaesthesia surcharge and no staged invoicing for components.

That is the figure written into your treatment plan at the consultation. Whatever a claim returns comes off it. Nothing gets added to it afterwards.

Malo bridge pricing is $17,500 per arch through 31 December 2026 and $25,000 per arch from 1 January 2027. Terms.

The full cost breakdown explains what each figure includes, and the warranty page sets out what is covered afterwards and for how long.

Insurance and payment FAQ