For many years now many of my health insurance clients in Illinois have been asking for a dental insurance plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. Up until now, BCBSIL did not have dental insurance for families or individuals – just on the group insurance side. If someone purchased a BCBSIL individual or family health insurance policy, they would have to look else were for dental coverage. In the past, we would have recommended a stand alone dental plan with Aetna or a Vital Savings plan from Aetna.

The new dental insurance plan is called Blue Care Dental PPO and is a solid dental plan.

Eligibility Requirements:

• You must enroll in a BCBSIL health plan in order to enroll in the dental plan (you have up to 31 days from the effective date of your policy to enroll). There is a window of time where current BCBSIL members can add the Dental plan starting on November 9th, 2009 and going until January of 2010.
• All members on that health plan must be enrolled in BlueCare Dental PPO, you can’t pick and choose family members who get dental.
• Once your dental plan is dropped for any reason, you cannot re-enroll unless you reapply for a new health insurance plan. As long as someone hasn’t had any major changes in their medical history, we usually recommend them to reapply every year or so to take advantage of new business rates.

One of the best benefits is that you’ll get dental coverage on day one – with no deductible required – for periodic checkups, cleanings x-rays and other preventive services. Most important, costs are typically reduced when you receive care from any of our participating network dentists. However, you also have the option to see any dentist not in the network, but your out-of-pocket costs may be higher.

There is a $50 dollar deductible per member per benefit period but this only applies to major services like Bridges, Crowns, Dentures, Endodontics (root canals), Oral Surgery and Periodontics (gum disease). For these services which they consider type III they do cover 50% of the Maximum Allowance after deductible. The maximum benefit per calendar year is $1,500.

Services like fillings and simple extractions don’t have a waiting period and they are covered 80% of maximum allowance without needing to pay a deductible. This is a very strong feature that you don’t see with many plans. For example a $100 cavity filling would only cost $20. Compared to the popular Aetna PPO plus dental plan, fillings were only covered at 50% and and there is a 6 month waiting period.

Monthly Premium for BlueCare Dental PPO

The pricing as an add on plan is very competitive especially for a family of 4 or more.

Zip codes 600 – 608

Member: $26.55
Member: + Spouse $53.10
Member: + Child(ren) $45.50
Family: $77.85

Zip codes 609 – 629

Member: $25.05
Member: + Spouse $50.10
Member: + Child(ren) $42.95
Family: $73.45

To run a quote or apply online, visit the BCBSIL quoting website. Please note that you must already have or apply for a new Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois health insurance policy in order to obtain a BCBSIL dental plan. You cannot get a standalone dental policy without applying for a health insurance plan.