Contract Type

The contract type of your dental insurance refers to the type of plan that your insurance follows. There are traditional insurance plans, PPO plans, DHMO plans, and EPO plans.

A traditional insurance plan is a plan where the patient pays a premium to the insurance company, and the insurance company pays a portion of the dental expenses for the patient. In a PPO, the patient has a network of dentists that they have to choose from when receiving dental procedures. If they do not use a dentist in the PPO network, the insurance will cover only a portion, or none at all, of the cost of the procedures. EPOs work in a similar fashion. A DHMO is a group that receives treatment from a specified group of dentists. The dentists are paid a flat monthly fee for the policy member in the DHMO, no matter how much care they provide for each individual patient. The patients usually have a very low co-payment that they have to pay for in their particular plans.

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