Understanding PPO Dental Plan Benefits

By Karyn Glogowski on December 16, 2024 in Dental benefit information

You can choose from many different kinds of dental plans, but Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO) are by far the most popular. In fact, more than 80% of dental insurance plans are PPOs.¹

So why have PPO plans emerged as the popular and smart choice? Because PPO plans offer clear advantages as suggested below.

A PPO plan can save you more money

Insurance companies develop a network of dentists who agree to charge you fees that are lower than their usual rates. Those discounts are the deepest when you visit a PPO network dentist.

You have options and flexibility

A PPO plan will offer you a variety of choices from a network of dentists. You also have the flexibility to visit any licensed dentist – even out-of-network dentists — but you can maximize your savings and benefits by visiting a PPO network dentist who has agreed to lower fees. In other words, your out-of-pocket expense is much less. 

There are more advantages

In addition to better health, greater savings and more choice and flexibility, with the Delta Dental PPO^TM network:

• Patients can save more than 35% on average by visiting a Delta Dental PPO network dentist compared to the fee the dentist would typically submit for a claim.⁵
• You know you will receive quality care because all dentists in our network are credentialed to make certain they meet or exceed our requirements.
• Claims payments go directly to in-network dentists, so you don’t have to pay the full cost upfront at the dental office and then wait to be reimbursed by the insurance company later.
• You won’t be balance billed by visiting a dentist in the Delta Dental PPO network. No balance billing means a dentist cannot bill for the difference between their regular fees and the amount they’ve agreed to charge patients in the network.

Delta Dental’s PPO network is one of the nation’s largest, with more than 112,000 dentists participating in over 278,000 locations nationwide.⁶ This not only gives you a great selection of qualified dentists to choose from, but increases the likelihood that your dentist already participates in the network. You can easily find a dentist now in the Delta Dental networks.

Sources:

^{1American Student Dental Association}

^{2National Association of Dental Plans}

^{3U.S. Surgeon General Report on Oral Health 2000 – Chapter 3 – Diseases and Disorders}

^{4Application of the international classification of diseases to dentistry and stomatology : ICD-DA. World Health Organization 1995}

^{5Dental Actuarial Analytics 2018 Dental PPO Study, slide 16}

^{6Delta Dental Internal Data}