Financial Policy
Thank you for choosing Dr. Staci Ianiro for your endodontic care. We are committed to providing you with the highest quality dental care possible.
Fees for endodontic therapy will vary, depending on the tooth in need of treatment and the particular treatment the tooth needs.
For Our Patients Without Insurance:
Fees for service are due at the time of treatment. For your convenience, we accept VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Debit Card, Personal Check, Cashier's check, Money orders, and cash.
We also offer outside financing through Cherry or Care Credit. You can apply online and have your approval in place prior to your appointment.
For our patients with insurance:
We file ALL primary and secondary insurances. Even though we accept partial payment from insurance companies, You, the patient, are ultimately the responsible for the entire amount of fees for service.
A payment of 50% of the total or pre-authorizarion of a credit card # is due at the time of service.
Our insurance financial policy:
1. Allows you to postpone actual payment (for up to 30 days**) until we truly know what your co-payment amount will be
2. Prevents your waiting for a refund check or a statement in the mail; collection of inaccurate (over-estimated) co-pay amounts on the day of treatment
3. Prevents the need to collect the full fee for service on your appointment day. We hope this helps!
As a courtesy to you, we will:
1. Accurately fill out your insurance claim and send it to your insurance provider the same day or next business day. We file to both primary and secondary insurances.
2. Strictly guard your CC information, keep it hidden, protected and confidential, and delete this information once your remaining balance has been paid
3. Print out your claim for you to read and follow up or verify as accurate with your insurance. We find that insurances may pay more readily and faster (ideally within your 30 day window) if their clients (you) call
By signing this financial policy, you are agreeing to: give Ianiro Endodontics permission to pre-authorize your credit card for the full fees for service onto your credit card; and within 30 days** of your appointment you authorize Ianiro Endodontics to charge the exact remaining balance due, whether or not your insurance has paid a portion of that balance by that time. If there has been an overpayment once insurance pays, we will promptly send a refund check to you.
****NOTE****: Missed appointments
Once an appointment has been made, this time has been reserved exclusively for you with appropriate staff to serve your dental needs. Canceling without adequate notice makes it difficult for us to meet the needs of other patients. Missed appointments or cancellations with less than 24 hours notice prior to your appointment will incur a $150 charge for missed procedures ($150 per procedure if multiple procedures are planned) and a $50 charge for missed consultations. The charge is necessary to defer the overhead costs involved with missed appointments, and to keep missed appointments to a minimum. This in turn keeps our normal fees reasonable, and allows us to use our time to help others in pain.
****NOTE****: Incomplete root canal fees:
Teeth are sometimes found to be non-restorable during treatment. Although part of the diagnostic work up is to find these things prior to treatment, if a tooth is found to have damage that is not repairable (deep fractures for example) during treatment, an incomplete RCT fee of at least $395 will be incurred plus exam and radiographs.
Minors
Payment of services for the treatment of minors is the responsibility of the accompanying adult.
Service charges
We will charge $30.00 for returned checks.
Collection fees
Fees incurred from our collection agency will be the responsibility of the patient.
Below is information regarding insurance companies and why they may or may not cover the entire cost of dental treatment.
Many carriers refer to their allowed payments as UCR, which stands for "Usual, Customary, and Reasonable". However, this does NOT mean exactly what it seems to mean. UCR is actually a negotiated list between your employer and the insurance carrier for a given procedure. The payment listing is related to cost of the premiums and the geographical area (typically by zip code of service rendered) where the work is done. In almost all cases, the payment for the billed services is usually less, frequently much less, than what we charge.
Our primary objective is to provide high-quality dental care at a fair fee while the insurance company's primary objective is to earn a profit for its shareholders. Yes, we are in business to earn a profit too, but we cannot allow the insurance company to dictate the standard and quality of care delivered to you. In an effort to maintain a high quality of care, we would like to share some information about dental insurance with you.
The cost of handling insurance within our office includes numerous lengthy phone calls, resubmitting information or radiographs (x-rays) two or three times because insurance companies "lost" or "never received" them, excessive paperwork, mailing and redundant billing. Hence, the cost of handling insurance is not trivial and really is substantial. Patience is involved since it takes at least 1 month for claims to be processed; it’s not unusual for 3 months and sometimes longer!
Our financial policies are in place to enable our patients to receive the highest level of endodontic care our office can provide. Please ask us if you have any questions!