Tricare Retiree Dental Plan vs United Dental
 

Anybody have any advice on tricare retiree dental plan vs united plans? I'm single and can't understand why tricare is so much more expensive for what appears to be the same or even better coverage with united? Thanks in advance for the help!

Everyone I've talked to went with Tricare for medical (duh), but picked someone else for Dental.

Delta Dental is more expensive and there's even a one year waiting period before you can get reimbursed for more expensive procedures. It was a no-brainer decision. Company plan.

Yet, I made the jump one September when, after years of paying plan premiums with the company for nothing but cleanings, I needed a root canal and crown. Great. I'm finally going to get some back for all I paid in. But between the diagnosis and the procedure the insurers dropped my network of dentists, mid year, with no warning. Wouldn't of thought that was even allowed. A couple of months and many $$s out of pocket later, I enrolled in Delta Dental. Just like Tricare, the stability of not going through the annual change of plans and medical providers was worth any extra expense. Set it and forget it. Same network for the last 10 years and no annual enrollment. My wife has gone through extraction, implant, cap, root canal, cap with great in network doctors.

As a caveat I will say that this all happened after my kids had finished orthodontia, so I'd check that first. When they entered that phase (long before my mid-year cancellation of coverage) I picked the company plan that covered the most for orthodontia. Don't know if Delta Delta covers that.

Never tried Delta Dental. Went with the company plan and it has worked out fine. A few years back, they had a MetLife plan that was more expensive but didn't cover as much as the less expensive plan. That has since been changed.

I do both. My dentist manages to file with each and I never have a copay. Not sure all dentists manage to make it work out like that.

I use Tricare for medical but United for dental. After crunching the numbers, I found that to be the cheapest option.

Tricare Standard and United MetLife Dental... found more dentists that use it... and it has better benefits than tricare dental IMO.

I will second United MetLIfe Dental. Two kids in braces and soon to have a third. Oral surgery for one of them. Costs were reasonable and process was relatively painless.

I had Tricare Dental in the past and it was inferior in my opinion.

I used to use Tricare for dental. About 2 years ago I went with United's dental plan. I found it fit the family's needs better than Tricare. Tricare does have fewer options, and may be great just for a husband and wife or a small family. Once you start getting kids braces, etc, I think UAL's plan is better.

For whatever reason MetLife PPO through the company is way, way cheaper than the Retiree dental plan. It's easily worth the $35 a month for orthodontics alone (5 of the 6 in my family have needed braces). The retiree plan is triple or quadruple that if I remember correctly.