Getting Dental Coverage Without an Employer in Dolores County
Dolores County, home of the 'Pinto Bean Capital of the World,' is one of Colorado's most remote agricultural communities — many working residents buy dental coverage on their own.
Working for yourself means no group dental plan to join. Adult dental care isn’t an essential health benefit under the ACA, so a health plan in Colorado doesn’t have to include it. In Dolores County that means choosing a health plan on Connect for Health Colorado first and treating adult dental as its own purchase.
What to Look for in a Self-Employed Dental Plan in Dolores County
When you compare stand-alone dental plans on your own, look at five things: the premium, whether your dentist is in the network, the deductible, the annual maximum and the waiting periods for basic and major care.
If you already need a crown, the waiting period matters more than the premium. HealthCare.gov notes that separate dental plans can have waiting periods for adults, and SecureDental PLUS, for example, waits 12 months for major care and 1 month for basic care.
No website can reliably tell you which dentists in Dolores County take a particular plan. Offices join and leave networks, so search the plan’s provider directory by the dentist’s name and ZIP code, then call the office to confirm.
Dental Insurance as a Business Expense in Colorado
For the self-employed, dental premiums usually qualify for the self-employed health insurance deduction. It lowers income tax, not self-employment tax, is capped at the business’s net profit, and is lost for any month you could have joined an employer-subsidized plan.
S corporation owners with more than 2% of the company can still take the deduction, but only after the corporation pays or reimburses the premiums and includes them in the owner’s W-2 wages.
Connect for Health Colorado, the state-run exchange in Colorado, sells dental plans alongside its health plans during enrollment periods, and its rules decide whether dental can be added on its own. A stand-alone dental plan bought outside the Marketplace can start in any month, usually on the first of the following month. Use the ZIP code form below and Daniel will send you the dental options for your address.
Stand-alone dental plans are excepted benefits under federal law, so they don’t count as minimum essential coverage and never stand in for a health plan.
Call (713) 575-9904 and Daniel will send the dental plans sold in Dolores County and check your provider against each network.