Mine was $2500 and dental insurance paid 1k. This was in 2021. It just wasn’t that expensive IMO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I see the signs advertising braces with your Medicaid card in another language I speak. I do not have personal experience so don't know if it really pays or not.

They do not pay for it unless it is so extreme that the child will suffer greatly. Medicaid normally will not pay for any of it.

Find me one criminal case where dentists are charged with Medicaid fraud for giving braces to hundreds of patients. It's open season. They can claim anything to rationalize it being a "medical issue." Some of the ritziest neighborhoods have degree mill orthos living like kings off Medicaid patients.

NP. You’re so close to being able to figure this out, little buddy

Anonymous wrote:It's not true that it has to be extreme. But I doubt orthodontists are getting rich off Medicaid rates, generally Medicaid pays less for a service than private insurance does.

They're mostly certainly still billing Medicaid thousands of dollars. That's better than the $0 they'd collect from these patients otherwise.

In college in the early 00s my freshman year a lot of the financial aid minority kids suddenly had braces after winter break. I know they were financial aid because I was in an first-gen working class orientation with them. It was like they all learned of some way to get braces paid for as dozens of them suddenly had braces that January.

There was also a scandal while I was in college that college students, from rich, middle class, to poor, were knowingly scamming state food stamp cards by filling out forms locally as single adults with technically poverty solo income. That scam spread like wildfire. It lastly maybe a year or two before the state banned college students from filling out the apps like that.

If such a food stamp scam can spread like wildfire among college kids, I imagine a way to get free $7000-10,000 orthodontia work would too.

It's not true that it has to be extreme. But I doubt orthodontists are getting rich off Medicaid rates, generally Medicaid pays less for a service than private insurance does.

Anonymous wrote:Why do you care? Are you paying for them ?

Yes, it's called income taxes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I see the signs advertising braces with your Medicaid card in another language I speak. I do not have personal experience so don't know if it really pays or not.

They do not pay for it unless it is so extreme that the child will suffer greatly. Medicaid normally will not pay for any of it.

Find me one criminal case where dentists are charged with Medicaid fraud for giving braces to hundreds of patients. It's open season. They can claim anything to rationalize it being a "medical issue." Some of the ritziest neighborhoods have degree mill orthos living like kings off Medicaid patients.

Anonymous wrote: I see the signs advertising braces with your Medicaid card in another language I speak. I do not have personal experience so don't know if it really pays or not.

They do not pay for it unless it is so extreme that the child will suffer greatly. Medicaid normally will not pay for any of it.

Why do you care? Are you paying for them ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t consider myself middle class if I was struggling to cover something as basic as braces.

Braces are not that cheap. Have have three in braces and it’s about $21000 in Arlington.

$7k each for braces? Liar.

NP.
I paid almost $8k for my kid. 18 months in braces. NW DC.

My kids' braces were about $3000 each, over the course of 18 months. In DC. And that included all appointments, any brackets that needed to be adjusted/re-glued etc. I always assumed Invisilign was cheaper? Eesh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They probably get it for “free” (#yourepayingforit).

Okay, how? I don’t want to pay another $7k.

The same way they qualify for their food stamps. They don’t work.

Many people on food stamps actually work minimum wage jobs. Maybe if states raised their minimum wages more people could get off food stamps. That was a novel idea floated by a wealthy R in CA.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap

Raising min wage will only make braces (among other things) more expensive for the rest of us.

Op this is just another example of how the middle class loses. We make too much to qualify for assistance yet too little to easily afford things like braces.

+1
I think this is where OP is coming from. My family is middle class and in this area that does not add up to much. It is tough to work hard, try to save, sacrifice many things and all those things that add up to "following the rules" yet you constantly see people richer getting more and people poorer being given assistance or opportunities that are not available to those who are fine overall but definitely struggle.

Yeah, that’s where she’s coming from. What was middle class is getting eaten alive and it’s only getting worse. It’s especially noticeable around here, because the expenses and taxes for everything are obscene and increasing. Even more so if you have kids. You can’t compete.

I know this thread kind of died but I'm in the midst of figuring out braces for my kid and was thinking about this thread. We are not low income, more middle income (around 140k HHI) but not wealthy like so many on this board.

Braces are really not that dramatic of a cost. Virtually all orthodontists offer payment plans and the per month cost is reasonable even on a lower income (we are looking at various orthodontists ranking from $175/mo to 2=$290/mo, with different lengths of plans and different down payment amounts). We also have access to an FSA through work, which we can combine with the payment plan to bring the out of pocket cost down further (we figure anything we buy with an FSA, we are getting at a 30% discount).

We also may be able to get up to $2000 paid by our insurance if we use the right one, which can be tricky. We would also have to switch to a more expensive dental insurance, though the cost per pay is like an extra $8 every two weeks. We are government employees so yes dental insurance is offered at a decent rate.

I was stressed about the cost of braces when I started looking into it and when I first saw the price estimates at various orthodontists, but coworkers and the orthodontists themselves are really helpful in helping to navigate this stuff and making sure we're maxing out our benefits and and making it affordable. Very few child expenses are like that. This has been an unusually pleasant experience in that regard.

It seems like people kind of go out of their way to make orthodontia more accessible to people at different incomes. As someone who should have gotten braces for both serious bite issues and aesthetic reasons (severe crowding and overlap), I really wanted to do this for my kid so she could feel confident in her smile. I'm really glad we can find an affordable way to do it. it might mean taking smaller vacations next year or putting off some house maintenance, but nothing dramatic. I think it's very worth it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a an adult whose parents truly didnt have money for dental care and I never had any sort of dentistry until I was an adult. So, the answer for some families is they just dont do it. Its optional.

For my son, it is actually far less expensive than I expected. We started putting money in an FSA to cover it and didnt need all of it. I think we paid $2K out of pocket. Its definitely something you can shop around for, use tax free accounts, hsas, or ask for a no interest payment plan. Its not that hard unless you just dont plan and dont take any actions to research.

Your parents did not take you for a basic cleaning??? WTF. I believe that is covered by medicaid at least.

if you are on medicaid you likely work multiple jobs and are really scraping by. dental visits are still a luxury. and there could be competing medical needs, so dentistry gets de prioritized.

I used to be a waitress and worked with some early 20s ladies that had had their children as literal teens and were on Medicaid. They still took those kids for teeth cleaning.

Anonymous wrote:I never went for a dental cleaning as a kid. My parents were not low income, but they are immigrants working for small businesses and they did not have dental insurance for any of us, so we only went to the dentist when there was actual pain/a cavity.

I think this is far more common than many people realize.

I never went for a dental cleaning as a kid. My parents were not low income, but they are immigrants working for small businesses and they did not have dental insurance for any of us, so we only went to the dentist when there was actual pain/a cavity.