I am caring for my mom . She has Medical, and County based health insurance. My concern is that it will disrupt her Medi-cal or county based insurance (Alameda Alliance). Her front tooth came out while eating and while its not painful, she refuses to smile and her spirits are down. She also is in need or dental care for regular maintenance, etc. ANY pearls of wisdom, advice or anything would help. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.
For your current dental plan, call them. We have Delta Dental and a pretty good policy within the various delta plans & they require that those covered are legal dependents and # of dependents increases the monthly premium. If you haven't priced dental, the cost is pretty high. I've found that dentists if you don't have a better dental insurance to begin with will require payment in full upfront before starting treatment plan or you sign off to a financing plan.
For my mom, she did thousands of $$ in spend down in dental work before going into a NH. Implants, gum work, couple root canals & crowns. Got rid of all the old style bridges. She was late 80's & early 90's getting all this done. There was only 2 endodondists who would even consider her due to her age that we could find & mom was still totally good on her ADLs and competent & had the $ to private pay. You may find your moms age & health may be a factor in her even getting scheduled for care to begin with. My moms general dentist office did a lot of calls and referral requests to get her in to see the specialists. If you have a good general DDS you go to, perhaps call their office to set up an evaluation of mom and get their thought as to whether speciality dental work is even feasible for mom. If she has heart issues, copd or diabetes, a lot of dentists won't take her as a new patient.
Hate to say this but if they live long enough, they will loose teeth as part of the aging process. For my mom, front tooth implant maybe 3K, 4 visits and involved anesthesia. If I'm remembering correctly part of the anesthia costs were paid by Medicare but could be that the dentist was a DMD oral surgeon affiliated with UT Heath science center so could run it that way. If there are gum issues those need to be taken care of first & those are painful with a good bit of recovery time in which they have to be religiously doing salt water rinses & flossing.
Good luck & let us know what you find out.
http://thelawdictionary.org/article/can-you-claim-your-parents-as-dependents-for-health-insurance-and-tax-purposes/
Another option may be to contact your local university's dental school (if you have one nearby). Most patients are seen by dental students but are highly supervised by qualified dentist/doctors. My 86-year old Mom does this and it is much cheaper than seeing a private practicing dentist.