As a small business employer, its important to understand the connection between oral health and your employees’ overall well-being. It’s not just cavities that are a problem. Gum disease that continues to go untreated will result in employee sick-time. For example, periodontal inflammation can cause employees with type 2 diabetes to have more unstable disease symptoms, which may translate to more sick days away from work.
You depend on your employees to be at work, every day. Offering a dental health insurance plan helps your employees when they need it and helps your business combat absenteeism.
What kind of dental benefits do employees want?
Provincial government insurance provides only very limited coverage for certain in hospital dental procedures. For any other dental work, an employee must pay out of pocket, often resulting in employees not attending to their oral health needs because of the financial cost.
That’s why offering a dental program is an ideal way to provide benefits that employees appreciate.
According to the 2021 Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey employer provided dental coverage is valued highly by employees and 21% of Canadian benefits plan members would like increased coverage for major dental services, with
- 19% of plan members aged 18 to 34 who chose increases in major dental services as what they want in health coverage, and another 12% chose basic dental care
- 24% of members aged 55 to 64 chose major dental services and 7% chose basic dental services.
What kind of dental coverage can you offer employees?
You can choose the type of dental coverage your employees need which will cover a portion of dental costs covered per year for:
- Basic Dental
For routine oral health maintenance, this coverage includes dental check-ups, fillings, X-rays, and cleanings. - Comprehensive Basic
This coverage includes periodontal treatment of gums and mouth tissue including cleaning and scaling, endodontic root canal therapy, and denture cleaning and repairs. - Major Dental
Includes services to restore teeth including crowns, on lays, dentures, and bridgework. - Orthodontic Dental
Covers services to correct defects and straighten teeth including braces and retainers.
Coverage for your Basic Dental care is available as soon as your employee’s health insurance policy is in effect. Other dental coverage may have a waiting period.
Dental plans also provide a great range of other coverage for healthcare expenses such as
- durable medical equipment including 100% coverage for diabetic medical supplies like, needles and syringes, up to the yearly maximum benefit level (typically from $1000 to $3000 each year)
- vision care
- registered specialists and therapists including chiropractors, chiropodists, naturopaths, registered massage therapists, physiotherapists, acupuncturists and registered psychologists or psychotherapists
- homecare and nursing or personal support workers, therapists, and dieticians
- prosthetic appliances
- accidental dental
- accidental death and dismemberment
- ambulance
- hearing aids
- travel medical insurance.
Putting a dental plan in place can keep you and your customers smiling
Together, the comprehensive range of benefits built into a dental insurance plan provides a strong foundation that helps your employees manage healthcare expenses and get regular dental care to avoid employee absences caused by untreated cavities and oral infections. It helps your business have employees healthy and ready to deliver their best for your customers.
Dental insurance plans are reasonably priced, so for a small cost you go a long way in positioning yourself as a caring employer. Every employee (or contract worker) is eligible with no medical questions asked.
And if your business already has a dental plan in place, is it enough? Don’t forget that you can offer employees access to individual health and dental plans that will work alongside their existing dental coverage to give them higher annual maximums or broader coverage for comprehensive care.
SBIS can help you put a plan in place
SBIS offers an array of dental insurance plans for small businesses that can help you provide high-quality, cost-effective, and reliable dental health insurance for your employees.
Whether you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, independent professional, contract worker and anyone else who is not covered by group benefits, we offer
- Experience and proven expertise to provide the best dental insurance product for your needs.
- A process of choosing dental insurance that is quick and easy; our representatives will work closely with you to identify the most appropriate product for your unique situation (because time is money).
- An affordable dental insurance programs to work within your budget and specifications.
We offer a variety of plans from top insurance companies including
- Manulife health insurance plans including Flexcare®, FollowMe™ and Manulife Association programs.
- Green Shield Canada and our exclusive Prism programs including Prism Continuum®, Prism Spectra® and Prism Precision®; all three programs offer varying levels of dental care.
- GMS health insurance plans, including Group Advantage health and dental plans specifically designed and attractively priced for small businesses with 3 to 10 employees, or choose GMS Personal Health Insurance and Replacement Health Insurance plans for individuals, if your company only has one or two who need coverage, or if you prefer to offer individual plans.
Having the right dental benefit plan can help your business attract top talent, maximize productivity, and keep your customers smiling
At SBIS we guarantee we will help you at no additional cost – so you can take the critical step to empower employees to take care of their oral health – and ensure they are able to keep your customers smiling.
Learn more about small business dental insurance and our offerings here or contact SBIS for your free, no-obligation quote or information package now!
