MetLife TRICARE Dental Program

“I participated in an Ambassador program on behalf of Influence Central  (#IC) for the MetLife TRICARE Dental Program. I received a promotional item to thank me for my participation.”

 
As this year is coming to a close my kids and I just finished up all of our routine, and not so routine, dental appointments. With my husband's retirement from the U.S. Air Force in our immediate future I'm thankful that we've been fortunate to have great dentists, and dental coverage, through the MetLife TRICARE Dental Program. One of the easy ways to enroll is through the online enrollment process.

At my last dental cleaning my dentist found one of my amalgam fillings had a tiny crack in it and needed to be replaced. He said over time this is a high possibility with these types of fillings - they simply don't last forever. I had several amalgam fillings and most of those were from my teen years so they've been in my mouth for too many years!

Knowing that my husband would be retired come the new year and that we wouldn't have our current dental plan anymore, I started thinking about getting all those amalgam fillings replaced by the end of the year and while we still had our MetLife Tricare Dental plan. I wanted to have this done because I had no idea what our next insurance would cover, or how much, or if we would even have dental insurance. Why not just get it taken care of now?

The MetLife TRICARE Dental Program has low-cost monthly premiums and cost-share rates (based on rank) for a variety of dental procedures. For an active duty family the monthly premium is $32.89 (and single is only $10.96.). Although the rates are increasing in Feb 2015 it is a very minimal rate. The new family premium will be $33.88. Compare that with the military retiree dental plan of just over $100 a month for premiums and I've heard many families say they elect to not have the retiree dental plan because it's just cheaper to pay out of pocket for the routine cleanings.

Fortunately MetLife approved the request for me to replace all my amalgam fillings with composite fillings (and it's so nice not to have all that silver in my mouth anymore!) and my cost share for the procedures was 20%. I was grateful to have this done with MetLife TRICARE Dental program because we didn't know who my husband's next employer would be and what kind of dental coverage we would have, or how much the cost share might be for that procedure.

The #MetLifeTDP also does a great job of keeping military members educated about dental health and important dental care practices through different communication channels. One way is that members can sign up for the Dental HealthMatters Newsletter to receive information such as benefits, updates, announcements, and tips. Another way to stay up-to-date is via the TRICARE Dental Program (TDP) Administered by MetLife Facebook and/or Twitter pages where you can learn some interesting facts about the program such as MetLife offers a TRICARE Dental Program Survivor Benefit. (The Government pays dental premiums and dental coverage for eligible surviving family members under the TRICARE Dental Program survivor benefit. 100% of the TDP Survivor Benefit premium is paid for children until age 21 (or 23 if student) and for spouses for 3 years beginning on the date of the sponsor’s death.).

In addition to providing dental coverage to spouses and children of active duty members, the TRICARE Dental Program also provides coverage to Reserves and National Guard members and their families. And speaking of the National Guard - their birthday was Dec 13, Happy 378th Birthday to the National Guard!