how do you save with medical/dental expenses

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone - Hubby and I ran into some medical issues over the last 2 years that have decimated our savings. Now that we are coming out of that we are beginning much delayed dental work (we were in grad. school for a long time and couldn't afford) that will also prevent us from saving anything significant.

How do you all deal with medical/dental expenses and savings? Are we doing this wrong? I feel like the medical/dental stuff can't wait but its scary to have so little savings (under $1,000).

Has anyone gone through this and come out fine? I just hate that all of this work is preventing us from saving for much of anything.

[Anonymous]

Do you have dental insurance? After we buy dental insurance, we normally only spend about $300 a year for DH and I (a cavity each)

[Anonymous]

They are in the budget.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We definitely have dental insurance. We have medical insurance too but as you know not everything is covered.

Our dental work is so major and dental insurance maxes out at a certain point.

I'm wondering if people just do this work really slowly - over years - as opposed to us who are trying to do it all within 6 months.

[Anonymous]

you could wait for next year and contribute to a medical spending account to be able to use pre-tax dollars. DH and I had dental insurance from both of our jobs so double insured and it still didn't cover enough. The year I needed a crown and had 5 cavities (pregnancy did a number on my teeth), I still ended up needing to pay about $5000 out of pocket.

Another option is to get the dental work done at one of the local dental schools.

[Anonymous]

Ugh, I feel your pain. I spend thousands out-of-pocket on medical and dental care every year, and I have good insurance! And it's not like I have something horrible, like cancer -- just a lot of miscellaneous stuff.

Anyway, I tend to do everything at the time the doctor recommends it. It just scares me to do otherwise. You can look into Care Credit, which is a 0% interest credit card for these kinds of issue. It's a reputable company which has been around for a long time.

Definitely max out your pre-tax flexible spending account.

[Anonymous]

Are you able to put money into an FSA account? You will probably have to wait until next open enrollment. They will take the money out of your paycheck throughout the year but the full amount you elected is available at the beginning of the year.

Also look into changing your insurance plan. If you have a lot of medical bills, it may be better to pay more for a better plan upfront with lower copays. I like the plans that have set dollar amount copays rather than the plans where you pay a percentage because it's so hard to know just how much you will be charged for some things. It's also easier to budget for it by knowing you will pay $50 for that xray rather than 20% or whatever of an undetermined amount.

Lastly, you can look into seeing if you qualify for deducting your medical expenses off your taxes. I believe it now has to be 10% of your gross income to qualify but worth looking into. Be sure to keep your receipts.

[Anonymous]

Also, run the numbers on your dental insurance if you need that much work. For us it was cheaper to just pay full as the premiums + work was more expensive.

[Anonymous]

Dental coverage is the worse in the US. They cover so little, just the bare minimum and that's usually just a cleaning once or twice a year!
Before I switch insurance, I would ask the dental office which has better coverage and many times, they are right.

[Anonymous]

Are you in an HMO? If not, you should be. We love ours and have trouble even spending the $1500/year we put in the FSA. PPO's are so overrated. We love our doctors and they all gladly take our insurance.

[Anonymous]

OP here's the answer! go to u md dental school for dental work. the work is really top notch; suspicious/not-needed work is never done; the cost is seriously less than anywhere else.

[Anonymous]

university of maryland...

[Anonymous]

Medical bills can wreck a budget. I have pretty good dental and health insurance but went though about two years of being very, very ill. I was at the doctor a lot and had to get many test. All those co-pays added up to a lot and I used every cent of my $2500 flex health account allotment.

For dental stuff I try and stretch it as long as possible. As long as I'm not in pain I honestly try and put dental work off.