Why won t my dental insurance cover dental implants?
Prior to the generation of implants introduced in 1982, the success for implant systems was less than 50% over 5 years for the lower jaw and worse in the upper jaw. Dental insurance companies saw this as a futile and experimental procedure that they were unwilling to support, so they all placed a clause in the insurance contract that disallowed coverage for implants. Since insurance companies are more interested in the bottom line than in your health, they have been slow to acknowledge the proven benefits of dental implants. This trend may be easing since we are seeing some coverage allowed for the restoration of the implant but not for the surgical phase.
