Does your employer offer orthodontic and/or vision insurance?

No coverage…...however they offer reimbursement w/ pretax dollars of income.

So we effectively get the coverage for a discount.

No, and what they do offer really sucks!!!

@Snoopy, you mean like a medical savings account? I do that, but it still hurts considering I pay insurance premiums and put that money away, too.

I’m covered completely for medical, dentist, and vision and my co pays for dr visits are five dollars. Co pay for meds are five to fifteen dollars. I can add up to three family members for about $400 a month. I realize I’m pretty lucky to have good insurance.

My wife’s job offers it all, including reimbursement for pet insurance. Good thing we live in CA and her job includes me as a spouse.

Mine covers dental, vision, medical, hospital stays, surgery, etc. My co-pay is zero dollars and I pay $10.00 for prescriptions. It’s good coverage, but I pay about $33.00 out of every check (paid weekly) and my deductible is pretty high. Plus, my place of employment kind of sucks hairy balls, so I often ask myself if I can continue to work through it all without killing myself – which would kind of defeat the entire purpose…

Yes. It functions like a medical savings account…..but it isn’t one. Don’t ask. More than you want to know.

It is better than what we had before…..which was nothing. So I will take what I can get…...

My job offers vision and some sort of dental. No one near where i live really accepts it though. Not many people i speak to ever tell me that they have good dental benefits.

Snoopy is referring to a Flexible Spending Account a/k/a a section 125 plan based on the section of the IRS code that regulates this program.
The employer sets up an FSA plan which allows an employee to contribute a certain amount of money each year, typically a minimum of $300 to a maximum of $2,500 per year which may be spent on legitimate medical expenses. Generally this applies to physician’ s charges, dental, optometrists, fees and co-pays, prescriptions, over the counter medications, certain dietary supplements, female contraceptive drugs or devices, medical devices such as CPAP, blood pressure equipment, diabetic meters, cold pills, band-aids. You name it,
Excluded are anything not medically necessary or cosmetic.
The employee contributes the funds through payroll deduction and then either submits receipts to a third party administrator for reimbursement or the third party administrator may have a debit card program which allows the employee to “charge” the cost.

What’s the catch?

When an employee makes an annual election in Novembe or December for the coming year, that contribution is cast in stone and must be paid every payroll. It can not be increased or decreased except under certain rigorous circumstances.
The other catch is that this is a use it or lose it situation. If at the end of the year (of March 15 of the following year, depending on the plan) you have not spent the entire contribution, it’s gone and belongs to the employer. It can not be rolled over and there is a risk that you could lose it.

Any other benefits?? Yes , your contribution is exempt from social security, medicare and federal and state income taxes. Your employer also saves the 7.65% matching contribution.

Anything else? Your employer also takes a risk. Say your annual election is going to be $2,400 per year or $200 per month. You suddenly crack a tooth and need to spend $1,400 on a root canal and a crown and it’s January 2nd. You can apply to your employer for the full reimbursement even though you may not have contributed a nickel yet. The employer has to pay.
Of course, you will eventually get even with the employer but you do have this flexibilty.

If you resign after spending the $1,400 the employer is stuck.

So there are elements of risk on both the parts of the employer and the employee.

I put this into effect in my company in 2004 and each year we lose about $1,000 overall through resignations and fees but the employees love it. If you kick in $2,500 then you can save at least 25% of that in taxes.

SRM

i work for the local government and ours has free dental and free vision if you go to their provider (one provider for each -i haven’t been so i don’t know how good they are) or if you go to your own, you pay up front and get reimbursed, like $50 toward eye exam, $50 toward glasses/contacts and for dental, it’s a very low reimbursement, like $27 for a cleaning. these rates are for one service per year for optical and two cleanings per year for dental. so it’s something, not adequate, but better than nothing i guess.

srmorgan To share our progam…..what we have is similar to an FSA, but not identical. Semi annually a form is sent out to declare how much money you want moved into an account based on the already incurred medical expenses. So you only put exactly what you need in the account. The money moves, expenses are sent in and we get a check. The account “zeroes’ out w/ each cycle.

It is similar to the FSA in that it is pretax dollars and the medical expenses covered are the same.

I know I have vision insurrance that covers one eye exam every year and one (cheap, plastic frame) pair of glasses or soft contacts every 2 years.

I have dental insurrance, but I haven’t a clue if orthodontics are covered, as I have no braces and no braces-wearing children…