Public insurance and private dentists - Germany

A "friend" (er...me) made the error of going to see a private dentist although having public (AOK) insurance. Is there any chance the insurance would reimburse up to the normal price they would pay? Or is that just hopeless?

At least I now know to read the dentist's sign a bit more closely!

you can try, might be a .0000001% chance they pay it, but AOK is one of the crappiest Kasses, wish you luck.

[Whisper Mode]Did you ask them?[/Whisper Mode]

don't believe there will be much of a chance for you there. In order to avoid such problems in the future you might want to think about getting yourself a private add-on-insurance for dental, will cost you (if you do not have any serious pre-existing conditions with your teeth) around 20-30.- EUR/month and will allow you to get full refund for normal treatment at private dentists and a higher share of costs covered in case of replacements etc.

Cheerio

AOK covers basic dental stuff like a check up and verrrry basic cleaning. If you don't have dental problems, getting extra dental insurance may not be financially prudent for you. If this is the case, then I would just go to a dentist who takes AOK and pay extra for a thorough cleaning if that is what you are after.

wahoo: if you are only living in Germany for a short while, you are correct in the first point. But there are two problems: if you have some complicated dental treatment to go through, some of the best dentists do not take AOK patients at all. And besides that, public insurance has reduced coverage for inlays, crowns and replacement steeply over the last couple of years and will appearantly eve cut deeper into it in the future. Nowadays only 60% of such costs is covered by public insurance and inlays and replacement consts can easily surmount in the thousands of EUR. With additional private coverage you can increase the coverage up to 80-100 % which is worthwhile if you know that you do have problems in this area or will likely to have some in older age.

I would rather recommend people to change from AOK to IKK Direkt and safe some money on the monthly premium costs and invest this money on additional private coverage.

Cheerio and have a nice weekend

SS- I had to take AOK through my job because that is the krankenkasse the co has a contract with or something. I added my 2 cents saying 'if you do not have dental problems'...I think that is followed with the assumption that one would not have the need for crowns, inlays, or whatever else.

Personally, I am seeing my old dentist back in the US in Oct for my bday from my mom

erm, they cannot make you take you AOK. that is also one of the most expensive public policies. you could save quite a bit by going to one of the cheaper public insurances. that sounds really fishy.

Acutally my company tried that one on me, and had me paying to AOK even though I'd signed no paperwork nothing. After arguing with them that they cannot just give my money away, they relented. I signed with TK in the end.

that is correct, no company - even if your salary is below the threshold and you have to take up compulsory public health insurance - can "force" you to use a particular health insurance and certainly not AOK which is indeed among the most expensive. However, once you are in it you might need to stay some time before you can cancel and go to another public health insurance... if I remember correctly 18 month or so.