San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Invisalign is simply amazing and the technology has matured tremendously over the last few years.

I finally got all my other work done last year and started treatment in December of '07. Total cost was 4.5k, insurance covered $500.

I'll be done in a few months and couldn't be happier. Its been a really amazing transformation! Plus when you are all done you can use the retainers for whitening.

Shop around for the best price. Lots of dentists are doing promotions and offering a full treatment for 2k. Almost the entire process is outsourced to Costa Rica. All the dentist does is take impressions, x-rays and a bite print.

Thanks. I'm not as concerned about cost as insurance is picking up the tab. Just need to incur.the expense this year. Just curious about the result. Might as well do teeth whiting too if invisalign is $4.5k

Nogo on insurance covering your invisalign. You can use your flexplan money though. This was my experience as I was gonna get invisalign this year but when I found insurance didn't cover it I am waiting til next year and will max out my flex plan to cover it with pretax money.

Double checked with the insurance coverage. There is $1500 base coverage for ortho related work. There is also $4.5k in supplemental health and/or dental spending account for anything else not covered per calendar year, use it or lose it (cosmetic surgery excluded). Of course, the health plan changes next year and will go from to much less benefit, hence why i need to use it this year.

Hey flu check out the picture of the English person's teeth. Ignore the site. I just thought the picture was funny:
http://www.firenorv.net/2008/10/english-...

Why no Lasik?

I have an eye condition, and lasik would be risky for me.

Hey FLU...

Second hand information here but I had a good buddy that had it done and he had really bad snaggle teeth. His teeth look great now. I had asked him what he thought about it and he said it was expensive but worth every penny. His brother went the regular braces route (both doing this as adults in there early 30s) and roughly suffered double the pain as the invisaligns.

So if you don't mind spending the money...

CE

FLU
A family member is a very exeprienced opthalmologist (not in CA) and if you were interested in finding out information regarding the potential risks of your condition and lasik I'm sure he'd be happy to help. He has nothing to gain by not giving you straight info and he's a good normal guy (like me) without any hint of arrogance. I could put you in touch with him if you'd like. Of course I'd have to let you into the inner sdr circle but for something like that I'd be happy to.

sdr

I really appreciate the offer. i wouldn't mind being into your inner circle...Thanks..

Concerning lasik though... The truth is I'm half blind in one eye, which cannot be corrected...period...The other eye, I'm nearsighted. So

It's not that an eye condition itself is preventing me from doing lasik on my other eye. It's many a risk/return issue I have. The risk is, as low as the probability is for lasik to go bad these days, if I am one of the lucky winners of a bad lasik job, I don't have the luxury of seeing well enough out of the other eye to do a lot of things I normally take for granted...Like driving.... So, unfortunately, I can't take that risk of doing lasik on my only good eye. i won't even stick a contact in my eye, for that reason frankly. Most eye doctors that talk to me about lasik and then find out about my condition quickly talk me out of doing anything...I guess they don't want the liability either.

I had braces twice when I was a teen and last year I did a series of invisalign. I have no regrets and my teeth are really straight. And my dentist threw in the bleach for free. It cost $4200, of which my insurance paid $2500. I think the treatment is good for those who have had braces in the past. My teeth got so tight with aging, and invisalign fixed it. Best part is that I didn't have a mouth full of metal at the ripe age of 40. I say do it.

flu
understood

sdr

FLU, I ran into the same thing with too much in my health spending account last year. For those that don't have health spending flex accounts at work, you get to shield the money from income taxes like 401k but you have to decide how much to put into it at the beginning of the year, it's your money and whatever you don't use by the end of the year you lose to the company that administers the plan, it is not part of your employer paid health insurance.

You can pay upfront for an ongoing dental service but if you can't spend it all, over the counter stuff counts. Last New Years Eve I was in a CVS buying $500 worth of everything I could think of, the IRS website also has a link of what is covered and what is not. I would think air purifiers count, I bought a humidifier and a vaporizor, first aid kits (which make nice gifts to local charities), just stock up the medicine cabinets to the gills, you can never have too much nyquill. Viagra and propecia are also covered, you can never have too much hair and too much.....

While this next suggestion isn't entirely ethical but it will work and I have it on good authority that god will approve as well as most jurors.

Find a poor person or an elderly person on a fixed minimal income that has health problems, a complete stranger is perfect. Take them to the drug store and let them go on an over the counter shopping spree, it's better than forfieting your deposits and the karma outweighs the risk. We are all going to die one day and we will be defending our actions at some point, that is one scenario I would okay defending and perhaps it will draw the attention away from that weekend in vegas we would all like to forget, or maybe that's just me.

Actually, that is an interesting idea. I forgot about my flex spending account. I think I might just do that.... do that to buy over the counter stuff by the end of this year and donate stuff. Of course, unfortunately, being sue happy C.A., I better be careful on what I buy :) But I get the idea of the spirit of things.

Our health insurance coverage changed recently, and part of the new plan includes stuff that the insurance will pay out of pocket expenses up to a dollar limit. But it has to be spent this calendar year. Cant buy stuff for other people though with that, me thinks that would be insurance fraud. But for years, in which health insurance have been sticking it to me, I plan to use all this benefit (loegally) as much as I can before it changes.

There is a coupon for $2000 off Invisalign at a local dentists office in this months "Uptown" coupon magazine. I would check it out.

From what I've heard the dentists only get charged $500 from the company. The rest is overhead.

check with your HR to see if your program offers three months extended period...