Comments on: Dental Lab Fees Rarely Billed Separately

By: Info

Info — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:06:00 +0000

What code do you use to bill insurance for a lab fee?

By: Garfield Logan

Garfield Logan — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 22:29:00 +0000

My office never bills the dental lab fee separately. No reason to make things more confusing. People have enough problems in their lives without me creating more headache for them.

By: Lab Owner

Lab Owner — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:53:00 +0000

Dental Labs would love to bill to the patient. We would have more control over our fee. As it is we are only 20% of what the Dentist charges.Years ago we were 30%+. Outsourcing has killed us in the market.

By: J

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:38:39 +0000

My dentist charged me a lab fee on top of a crown fee. I called my insurance to ask a question about something else and they told me that I should not have been charged the lab fee due to the type of insurance I have. I plan on getting that back. I appreciate my dentist, but if I am already paying to have insurance and they tell me that fee is included in my co-pay it kind of bothers me that they would charge it to me. It tells me they did not care what kind of insurance I am paying for and that they are going to charge what they want. If it were a valid charge I would not care but don’t go and take advantage of people.

By: joseph heher

joseph heher — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:52:01 +0000

Years ago, when dental insurance was just starting, I used to charge for my time, skill and judgement plus my lab fees–I got so much grief in that the ins. companies wouldn’t equitably allocate the charges for the patient. How much time, other than equilibration does one spend on a pontic in a fixed bridge–so I just charged my lab fee for a pontic? Yet, my fee for abutments was much higher than the average DDS fee in my area (difficulty in prep, paralleling prep, impression, etc.) In the end, my fees might have been the same as a DDS who split his fee evenly for a 3-unit bridge, but what would happen is that the insurance company would pay my full fee, less 50% for the pontic (which came out to almost nothing), and really discount the charge for the abutments, such that the patient came out really getting screwed in their reimbursement from the insurance carrier, and the insurance company was keeping the profits from the way I coded the insurance form. So who won in that scenario–I finally capitualated and divided up my fee according to the way most everyone else does.

By: John Workman

John Workman — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:02:28 +0000

I have been seperating the lab fee from my fee for over five years. It is a little surprise in the beginning but it is like anything else once the patients are used to it and know that you try to give them quality they accept it. It works and for large cases you can ask your lab to give a quote for what you want to do and they will honor that quote when they do the work so you can quote the entire fee for the patient. The problem with doing it this way is in our brains not the patient’s. WHO CARES WHAT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES THINK. It’s time to break with so called tradition and do what is best for our practice and our patients. If we are not profitable we will not be able to provide a quality product for our patients. INSURANCE COMPANIES CANNOT DICTATE CARE or how we choose to fee the patient. If we continue to wrap our practice culture around the insurance culture and allow them to influence how we treat our patients we will cease to be a profession and we can all join the insurance clinics where they will tell us what services we can provide and what the fee will be. We will have a job working for the insurance companies. If you think I’m crazy just look at the medical profession. They already work for the insurance companies.