General Information

Thank you for choosing Dr. Jason Duggan for your endodontic care. We are committed to providing you with the highest quality dental care possible, but in order to achieve our goals we ask for your cooperation in being responsible for your dental bill.

Our fee for examination is $135.  Payment is due in full on the day of the examination, regardless of insurance coverage.  

For your convenience we accept: VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Care Credit , Debit Card, Personal Check, Cashier's check, Money orders and cash.  We also provide outside financing through CareCredit.   CareCredit Payment plans can make needed treatment affordable. You can apply right now online, and have your approval in place prior to your appointment with us! For more information, contact CareCredit at  www.carecredit.com or by calling 1-800-365-8295.

For our patients without insurance:
Fees for service are due in full at time of treatment.  We accept: VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Debit Card, Personal Check, Cashier's check, Money orders and cash.  We also provide outside financing through CareCredit.   For more information, contact CareCredit at  www.carecredit.com or by calling 1-800-365-8295.

To our patients with insurance:
Though we accept partial payment for treatment from insurance companies, You, the patient, are ultimately the responsible for the entire amount of fees for service.

Option A:    Payment is not due until either your insurance pays their portion, or until 30 days* after your treatment day, whichever comes first. Instead of collecting payment on your treatment day, we will pre-authorize your credit card at that time for the full fee for service (this only reserves credit for the treatment fee, the fee has not yet been charged).  When your insurance payment arrives to our office (if it is within 30 days*), we will charge the exact remaining balance to your pre-authorized credit card at that time. If your insurance payment does not arrive within 30 days* of your treatment, we reserve the right to charge the full fee for service to your pre-authorized credit card.  We will promptly send you a refund check for any overpayment once the insurance payment is received.
Pre-authorization of your credit/debit card will reduce your available balance/credit limit and make those funds inaccessible during the authorized time period.

Option B:  No credit card pre-authorization is needed if you pay 50% of the total fee for treatment on your treatment day.  When your insurance pays (or after 30 days* has expired, whichever comes first if there is a remaining balance), we will either send a refund check or collect the remaining balance due.

Our insurance financial policy:
1.    Prevents the need to collect the full fee for service on your treatment day.  We hope this helps!
2.    Allows you to postpone actual payment (for up to 30 days*) until we truly know what your co-payment amount will be.
3.    Prevents your waiting for a refund check or a statement in the mail.
4.    Prevents over-collection of co-pay amounts on the day of treatment.
As a courtesy to you, we will:
1.    Accurately fill out your insurance claim and send it to your insurance provider.
2.    Strictly guard your Credit Card information, keep it hidden, protected and confidential, and delete this information once your remaining balance has been paid.
3.    As requested, we will print out your claim for you to read and follow up or verify as accurate with your insurance. We find that insurances may pay more readily and faster (ideally within your 30 day window) if their clients (you) call personally.

*“30 days” means that it must arrive on the last business day of 30 days, with day one (1) being your treatment day.

Incomplete Root Canal Fees:
Teeth are sometimes found to be non-restorable during treatment.  If a tooth is found to have damage that is not repairable (deep fractures, for example) during treatment, an incomplete Root Canal Treatment fee of $400 will be incurred, in addition to the fee for the examination.

Minors
Payment of services for the treatment of minors is the responsibility of the accompanying adult.

Service Charges
We will charge $30.00 for returned checks.

Collection Fees
Fees incurred from our collection agency will be the responsibility of the patient.

By signing this financial policy, you are agreeing to: give Jason M Duggan DDS permission to pre-authorize your credit card for the full fees for service onto your credit card, and within 30 days* of your treatment you authorize Jason M Duggan DDS to charge the exact remaining balance due, whether or not your insurance has paid a portion of that balance by that time.  If there has been an overpayment once insurance pays, we will promptly send a refund check to you.  Patients with special circumstances for whom these options will not work, agree to pay the full fee for service at time of service.

Below is information regarding insurance companies and why they may or may not cover the entire cost of dental treatment.

Dental benefits differ greatly from medical health insurance benefits.  In 1971, your dental-insurance benefits were approximately $1,000 per year.  Figuring a 6% rate of inflation per year, you should be receiving more than $4,549 per year in dental benefits. Your premiums have increased, but your benefits have not.  Therefore, dental insurance is never a pay-all; it is only an aid or supplement.

Our primary objective is to provide high-quality dental care at a fair fee while the insurance company's primary objective is to earn a profit for its shareholders.  Yes, we are in business to earn a profit too, but we cannot allow the insurance company to dictate the standard and quality of care delivered to you.  In an effort to maintain a high quality of care, we would like to share some information about dental insurance with you.

Many carriers refer to their allowed payments as UCR, which stands for "Usual, Customary, and Reasonable".  However, this does NOT mean exactly what it seems to mean.  UCR is actually a negotiated list between your employer and the insurance carrier for a given procedure.  The payment listing is related to cost of the premiums and the geographical area (typically by zip code) where the work is done.  In almost all cases, the payment for the billed services is usually less, frequently much less, than what we charge.

A common point of confusion is about how an insurance company determines UCR (Usual and Customary).  Inflammatory information is often sent by the insurance companies that may state our fees are higher than usual and customary.  An insurance company surveys a geographic area, calculates an average fee, takes 80% of that fee and considers it customary.  Included in this survey are discount dental clinics and managed care facilities, which bring down the average.  Many plans tell their participants that they will be covered "up to 80 percent or up to 100 percent," but do not clearly specify plan fee-schedule allowances, annual maximums or limitations.  In fact, “80% of UCR” many times is not even calculated by the fees in the area but instead is some arbitrary number so the company can sell the plan to your employer at a specific cost per person.  Hence, it may not represent a practical fee for a given procedure.  It is more realistic to expect dental insurance to cover 35 - 65% of major services.  Remember the amount a plan pays is determined by how much the employer paid for the plan.  You get back only what your employer put in, less the profits of the insurance company. 

The cost of handling insurance within our office includes numerous lengthy phone calls, resubmitting information or radiographs (x-rays) two or three times because insurance companies "lost" or "never received" them, excessive paperwork, mailing and redundant billing. Hence, the cost of handling insurance is not trivial and really is substantial.  Patience is involved since it takes at least 1 month for claims to be processed; it’s not unusual for 3 months and sometimes longer!

Our financial policies are in place to enable our patients to receive the highest level of endodontic care our office can provide. We’d be happy to answer any questions.