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Examine Our Financial
Policy
Oakview Dental accepts payment for treatments in many forms:
VISA, MasterCard and debit cards, cash and cheque.
We also offer external
financing through the Patient Link Financial payment plan.
Please logon to: www.patientlinkfinance.com/dental.asp to
see if you're eligible.
Failed Appointment Fee
At Oakview Dental, patients are required to provide 48 hours notice of appointment cancellation to avoid being charged a "failed appointment fee". Each case is dealt with subjectively and any charges are dependent not only on the anticipated length of the appointment, but also on individual circumstances.
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You and your Dental Insurance
We will happily handle all your insurance
claims and electronically file them as you leave. In
this way, you should be reimbursed directly by your insurance
carrier(s) within a few working days. It is worth noting
that those patients with dental insurance are fortunate to
have this benefit. Please understand that the agreement
is solely between you and your insurance carrier and information
transfer between our office and your carrier is either blocked
or minimized due to the FIPPA (Freedom
of Information and Privacy Protection Act) legislation
set out by the Federal Government. Its also worth noting
that significant confusion exists regarding plan benefits.
Not all procedures offered, required or requested may
be covered by your insurance carrier. As with all insurances,
there are a wide array of provisions ultimately dependant
on the premiums paid by the you, the plan holder.
In order to facilitate the payment process, it is essential that insured patients provide the following information on their first visit:
- the Name of their insurance carrier
- the Group Policy number
- Certificate or ID number
- the name and date of birth of the policy holder
- please provide our office with your benefit booklet at your first appointment if possible
Insured patients should also be aware of the specific levels of coverage provided by their employer’s insurance, e.g., the annual maximum allowed per patient, the annual deductible (if any), percentage of coverage allowed for specific services (diagnostic, preventive, restorative, endodontic, crowns, bridges, specific types of fillings covered, etc.). This information can be obtained from their employer’s employee benefits department.
It is common for plan benefits to be expressed as a percentage;
for example, 100%A, 50%B, 0%C. What this means is that your
carrier will agree to pay that particular percentage of a FEE
GUIDE that they have selected. Today, insurance carriers use
a wide variety of FEE GUIDES, some of which are based on guides
that are several years out of date. Other plans have discounted
the Provincial Fee Guide to 70% (or 50%) and claim that they
are paying 100% of their fee guide. This also is mis-leading
since 70%(50%) of 100% is still 70%(50%). For this reason,
it can be quite confusing in dealing with all the available
dental plans.
If you have any questions about fees or wish to know ahead
of time what your obligations will be, please ask any one of
our administrative team. They will be happy to review fees
with you and, where appropriate, submit a PREDETERMINATION
to your insurance carrier or present you with a written estimate.
This will let you know, ahead of time, whether your plan(s)
will cover the required treatments and to what extent. Of note,
due to FIPPA regulation, this will be sent directly to you.
This causes considerable frustration as this appears to be
a piece of unwanted mail that is very difficult to understand.
More often than not, it gets thrown out, negating the whole
process. For this reason, we suggest that you watch out for
this letter and, when you receive it, forward it to our office
for interpretation. Unfortunately, the predeterminations sent
out to you are not patient-friendly and are confusing at the
best of times.
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