An Across-the-Board Insight on Aetna Dental
If you’re looking for dental coverage, you may want to check out Aetna Dental. Aetna is a managed health care organization that has been writing policies in nearly all areas of health coverage since the early 19th century.
Though you can easily go and get a free quote right now, you may want to take the time to read up on the company before signing a policy with them. The lowest price is not always the best reason to subscribe to any health insurance policy. Here’s everything that you need to know as a customer when it comes to Aetna Dental:
A Brief History of Aetna, Inc.
Aetna started life as a health care company in 1819 when Henry Leavitt Ellsworth became president of the Aetna Fire Insurance Company. In their fire insurance days, Aetna was actually named for Mount Etna, Europe’s then-most active volcano. Between this time and the 1850s, the company would begin to explore life insurance and health insurance options.
There was some controversy in the 2000s when the company abandoned unprofitable markets, and in 2009 when the company’s stock rose following Joe Lieberman (who has as of now received over $110,000 in campaign donations from the company) promising to join a filibuster if a public health option was not taken out of a health reform bill. Other efforts made by the company to remain profitable saw them dropping more than half a million customers and raising prices across the board.
The company has been hit with a series of lawsuits ranging from allegations of fraud and malice to improper denials and bungled claims. In 2000, Aetna disclosed dealings from the slave trade era of American history, revealing that they sold life insurance policies to slave owners. The company refused to pay reparations when a class action suit was thrown out.
Dental Services from Aetna
Although there has been some major controversy in how Aetna conducts business, the bottom line for clients is always the dental services being made available, their cost and the quality of care received.
Through Aetna, depending on your policy, you may have access to $59 exams and cleaning as well as affordable wisdom tooth extractions and family policies that cover things like braces and oral surgery with little more than a small co-pay on your part.
Though Aetna offers more expensive dental policies than many of their competitors, they do tend to offer quality dental policies according to many of their customers.
Rating the Company
Controversy aside, Aetna earned a rating of “good” (three out of four stars) for meeting national standards of health care in 2010, although their 2011 rating dropped to two stars according to the California Health Care Quality Report Card.
Policies Available Through Aetna Dental
At the end of the day, what counts is what sort of coverage you can get, at what price, and whether or not you trust the company to deliver on that policy. The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of health insurance companies want to ensure that their customers get the very best care for their money, and a company is defined by the service they provide, not the headlines they create. Here are a few of the offerings made by Aetna as of the time of this writing:
1. Medicare Solutions
2. Individual Dental Policies
3. Family Dental
4. Employer Dental Policies
5. Combined Coverage (Vision and Dental, Health and Dental, etc.)
Final Verdict
We would advise taking Aetna into consideration as a dental insurance provider, but comparing their policies and pricing to other companies before settling on any one provider.