Dental care is underrated, and studies show that regular dental visits enable early detection of serious medical conditions.

Employers can offer valuable dental benefits without large premium losses. By self-funding dental benefits, employers can achieve cost savings and other benefits that can spur utilization of the plan. Here are an employer’s top 5 advantages of self-funding dental benefits:

Unused Premium Savings

With self-funded dental, premiums are used for payment of dental claims. If employees don’t use their dental benefits, the premiums are not lost! Instead, they are saved for payment of claims during the next year.

Open Provider Choice

What’s scarier than going to the dentist? Going to a new dentist because your current one is out of network. That alone would cause most employees to forgo using their dental benefits altogether. However, with self-funded dental plans, employees have an open access dental network, meaning they can use whatever dentist they’d like. And if they’re comfortable with their dentist, they’ll be more comfortable using their dental benefits.

Lower Premiums

How many people would pay for something that makes them uncomfortable? That’s how many employees feel about dental insurance, and this is compounded by the high premiums of fully insured dental plans. However, self-funded dental plans offer lower premiums, making dental benefits that much more enticing for employees.

Plan Flexibility

When self-funding a dental plan, employers can set their desired plan options and caps, enhance the plan as time goes on, and even combine the plan with other valuable benefits like self-funded vision. Because of this flexibility, employers can design a benefits plan that meets the needs of employees, thus encouraging adoption and use of the benefit.

Happier Employees are More Productive

Self-funded dental plans reduce employees’ fears about going to the dentist and employers’ fears about wasted benefits. Employers no longer have to fear lost premiums or unused benefits, and employees can be more comfortable adopting dental coverage because it meets their needs.

Because of the success of self-funded dental plans, self-funded dental serves as a great stepping stone for transitioning to self-funded medical plans too. To get your feet wet with self-funding, contact us to learn about self-funded dental plans. Let’s get you started on the path toward healthcare cost savings.