In today’s competitive marketplace, most businesses wish they may provide current and potential employees with comprehensive dental care benefits. “Dental plans rank as the 3rd most significant employee benefit, just behind health and retirement.”18 According to Cathy Smithwick, dental practice leader at Mercer Consulting, dental coverage is the “visible benefit because typically 75% of employees will work with a good dental plan.”19

Dental benefits not only increase employee satisfaction and morale, but they are able to also reduce the hours lost as a result of dental issues. According to Oral Health in America, “employed adults lost significantly more than 164 million hours of work each year as a result of dental disease or dental visits.”10

A recently available study from NADP implies that only 56% of the U.S. population has dental insurance.11 Therefore, inexpensive dental 牙冠價錢 care solutions are highly coveted by both employers and employees. “To satisfy employee demand, more employers added dental to the benefits menu in recent years. Among the final holdouts, the us government, will offer dental benefits to employees in 2006.”20

“Seven out of ten employers (71%) offer dental benefits, often with them whilst the differentiating element in recruiting and retaining employees.”18 The investigation implies that the larger a small business is, the much more likely they are to provide dental benefits. “Among firms with at the least 10 employees, 56% offered dental coverage in 2003. Just twelve months later, that figure leaped to 67%, based on an annual survey of employer-sponsored health plans by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Dental offerings among large employers (500 employers and up) jumped from 90% to 96% of firms.”20

Unfortunately, many businesses cannot afford to cover all or section of their workers’dental benefits. “Mercer data show dental costs averaged $577 for several employers in employers in 2003 and edged as much as $598 in 2004, a 3.6% increase. Large employers, meanwhile, saw a 5.4% increase from $574 to $605.”20 According to Evelyn Ireland, Executive Director of NADP, “employers aren’t dropping dental coverage, but they’re squeezing the amount of money they’re causing it.”20 So as the price of providing dental benefits for their employees continues to rise, businesses are passing these price hikes onto employees. “The absolute most obvious way for employers to manage dental costs … is to produce employees pay more.”20

Kirk Rothrock, CEO of CompBenefits, believes that numerous businesses are shifting the price of dental benefits for their employees.20 “The greatest trend we’ve seen during the last 3 or 4 years is the move from employer-paid benefits to voluntary benefits,” he says. “Employers assert, ‘I can’t afford to cover your dental benefits.’ ”20 The State of the Dental Benefits Market, 2005 confirms that “over 70% of the people is paying at the least a percentage of their dental premiums” and about 25% are spending money on their entire dental premium.16

Many businesses are turning to discount dental plans, a reasonable option to dental insurance, to defray the expenses of providing their workers with valuable dental benefits. Discount dental plans present flexible, affordable dental benefits which are an easy task to implement and practically effortless to manage. They provide businesses with a perfect way complement their existing benefits and give you a more balanced benefits package. Many businesses are utilizing discount dental plans to provide dental benefits to the folks which are rarely covered by traditional dental insurance, including retirees, part-timers, seasonal workers and uninsured dependants.

Discount dental plans are much less expensive than the $600 many companies are currently paying to cover employees with traditional dental insurance. Furthermore, discount dental plans save businesses valuable company time with convenient dental benefit solutions free of tedious paperwork hassles. Giving employees the freedom to decide on their particular plan, businesses are relieved from the burden of picking dental benefits to fit the initial, individual needs of their diverse workforce. Discount dental plans allow businesses to award their workers with the peace of mind they deserve and the affordable dental care they desire.