Putting money where the mouth is...

There's an interesting trend in health insurance to cover dental care for a certain group of people during a certain time in their lives. Why? Well because a "number of studies suggest that early prevention and treatment of gum disease may result in significantly improved outcomes for pregnancy, heart disease and diabetes, often leading to substantial medical-cost savings."

Cigna Corp.'s Oral Health Integration Program, implemented earlier this year, covers additional deep cleanings known as scaling and root planing during pregnancy at no extra cost, or an additional regular cleaning (over the usual two a year) for pregnant women who don't require scaling and root planing. A similar benefit is available for patients in Cigna's diabetes and cardiac-care disease-management programs.

So far the biggest beneficiaries of this trend are pregnant women, as Aetna and smaller insurers are paying for commonplace items like antibiotic mouthwash.

"'We can save medical costs by getting people to have dental care at the right time in their lives,' says Glenn Melenyk, dental consultant at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in Detroit." BCBS has in fact signed up big corporations like Ford Motors -- companies that have been complaining about the rising costs of healthcare -- because they believe this preventive approach to healthcare will save them money in the long run.

(This comes from the 19 Sept. 2006 WSJ article "Health Plans Expand Dental Benefits" -- subscription required)