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

Dental benefits not only increase employee satisfaction and morale, but they can also cut down the hours lost because of dental issues. Based on Oral Health in America, “employed adults lost a lot more than 164 million hours of work each year because of dental disease or dental visits.”10

A recent study from NADP implies that only 56% of the U.S. population has dental insurance.11 Therefore, inexpensive dental 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. One of many final holdouts, the federal government, will offer dental benefits to employees in 2006.”20

“Seven out of ten employers (71%) offer dental benefits, often with them since the differentiating factor in recruiting and retaining employees.”18 The investigation implies that the larger a business is, the more likely they are to offer dental benefits. “Among firms with at the least 10 employees, 補牙費用 56% offered dental coverage in 2003. Just one year later, that figure leaped to 67%, in accordance with 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 element of their employees’dental benefits. “Mercer data show dental costs averaged $577 for several employers in employers in 2003 and edged up to $598 in 2004, a 3.6% increase. Large employers, meanwhile, saw a 5.4% increase from $574 to $605.”20 Based on Evelyn Ireland, Executive Director of NADP, “employers aren’t dropping dental coverage, but they’re squeezing the total amount of money they’re causing it.”20 Whilst the cost of providing dental benefits with their employees continues to go up, businesses are passing these price hikes to employees. “Probably the most obvious method for employers to manage dental costs … is to create employees pay more.”20

Kirk Rothrock, CEO of CompBenefits, believes that many businesses are shifting the cost of dental benefits with their employees.20 “The largest trend we’ve seen over the last 3 or 4 years may be the move from employer-paid benefits to voluntary benefits,” he says. “Employers are saying, ‘I can no longer afford to cover your dental benefits.’ ”20 The State of the Dental Benefits Market, 2005 confirms that “over 70% of the populace is paying at the least a portion of these dental premiums” and about 25% are investing in their entire dental premium.16

Many businesses are turning to discount dental plans, an inexpensive option to dental insurance, to defray the costs of providing their employees with valuable dental benefits. Discount dental plans present flexible, affordable dental benefits which can be easy to implement and practically effortless to manage. They supply businesses with an ideal way complement their existing benefits and give you a more balanced benefits package. Many businesses are utilizing discount dental plans to offer dental benefits to individuals which can be rarely covered by traditional dental insurance, including retirees, part-timers, seasonal workers and uninsured dependants.

Discount dental plans are much more affordable than the $600 many companies are 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. By giving employees the freedom to decide on their own plan, businesses are relieved from the burden of picking dental benefits to match the initial, individual needs of these diverse workforce. Discount dental plans allow businesses to award their employees with the satisfaction they deserve and the affordable dental care they desire.