I have some dental issues with my upper teeth, missing three back teeth and have one bridge that is 37 years old. I would like to have all my upper teeth replaced with permanent denture implant. I have struggled with peridontal disease and go in every six months for scaling/root planing. I did try a partial dental plate but it made me gag, and I could never get past that or trying to eat with it in.
I would like to get an estimate for this if it can be done and it could be considered a medical condition so that my medical insurance would help pay for it.
Thank you for your time.
- Bev in Utah
Bev,
That’s a point that we don’t mention maybe as often as we should. One distinct advantage of dental implants over say a removable partial denture or a complete denture is that there is no extra hardware in your mouth, and people who are prone to gagging can sometimes have great difficulty with a plate, say, that goes across your entire palate as many dentures need to have.
As far as your insurance, your medical insurance won’t likely cover anything, so you will need to go to your dental insurance for any help. We get variations of this question a lot – “My teeth are affecting my general health, so can’t I expect my medical insurance to help pay for it?” But almost all medical insurance contracts have an exclusion clause that specifically denies coverage for any dental problems. Otherwise, even a simple cavity could be called an infection and it does affect your general health. The only exception is that medical insurance will generally cover dental damage from an accident. So if you break your front tooth diving into a shallow pool, medical insurance will generally help you pay for it. Otherwise, anything done to your teeth will be excluded from being covered by medical insurance.
We can’t give estimates for specific dental work. For that you need to consult a local dentist. We do have a page on dental implants cost to give you some general guidelines.