Collingswood Dentist Offers Reduced-Price Care Plan

If you’re finding your trips to the dentist are getting to be as rare as flossing (let’s be honest here, folks), then you’re not alone.

For a number of reasons, says Collingswood dentist Dr. Arthur Thurm, a lot of patients today are putting off necessary dental work. Whether the industry has never truly recovered from the financial meltdown of 2008 or people are “just gun-shy” when it comes to sitting in the chair, it's a nationwide concern.

“It’s definitely a national problem,” Thurm says. “People, even if they are working and so forth, are putting off stuff because it’s almost like the financial crisis [of] four years ago. They’re gun-shy about spending any money.

“Not that they don’t need the services,” he says. “It’s all about money, it’s always about money. “

So to combat a potential pandemic of oral health issues—and possibly scare up some business—Thurm Dental Group came up with a recession-and-cavity-busting discount plan.

For a $240 enrollment fee, patients get four months of reduced-price dental care. Under the plan, Thurm’s fees for most general dentistry services—cleanings, fillings, X-rays; things “people need to at least get started to a more reasonable point of health,” he says—are reduced 50 percent.

Fees for advanced services are reduced 35 percent, dropping the price of, say, a new crown, from $1,600 to $1,100. Best of all, he says, by working directly with their dentists, patients don't have to run their proposed course of treatment by their insurance companies.

“If people sign up for it, they’re entitled to do whatever dentistry they want,” Thurm says. “If they have financial issues, we have outside financing. Even people with insurance can actually use this. We’ll discount the fee as long as we report them to the insurance company.”

If the deal works out for them, patients may elect to continue Thurm's coverage past the initial four-month term. He says the option provides patients with greater flexibility than they would otherwise enjoy under a managed benefit dental plan, and without any preset reimbursement caps.

“It’s just crazy for people to pay insurance companies to administer these policies,” Thurm says. “You don’t get a lot of benefits. People come in needing a fair amount of work, the companies have annual maximums and they don’t let you use it.

“You’re better off doing it yourself and putting that money into a plan like ours. You tell us how much work you want to do and we’ll do it,” he says.

Dental insurance doesn't cover as much as it could, Thurm says, because for years, annual maximums haven’t kept up with the cost of inflation. Thus, the amount of work to which patients are entitled under these plans is limited in a calendar year, which either forces patients to put off necessary services or pay out of pocket.

Neither option is ideal for overall health.

“Any type of delay in treatment is going to lead to greater problems,” Thurm says. “Smaller problems become bigger problems; bigger problems are more expensive to correct. It’s just a bad kind of treadmill of care for a lot of people.”

He hopes his new approach will break that cycle.

“We’ve had some takers,” Thurm says. “People can save thousands of dollars if they’re in need of care.”