Getting Dental Coverage Without an Employer in Woodford County
Woodford County in north-central Illinois is a prosperous agricultural community centered on Eureka and Eureka College — many farming families and rural residents buy dental coverage on their own.
No employer means no one else picks your dental plan. Health insurance and dental insurance are separate purchases for most adults, because adult dental isn’t an ACA essential health benefit. Whatever health plan you pick through Get Covered Illinois, adult dental coverage is a separate decision in Woodford County.
What to Look for in a Self-Employed Dental Plan in Woodford 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.
Check waiting periods before you buy. HealthCare.gov notes that separate dental plans can have waiting periods before they cover services for adults; on SecureDental PLUS, basic care waits 1 month and major care and orthodontia 12 months, while cleanings have no wait.
No website can reliably tell you which dentists in Woodford 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 Illinois
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.
More-than-2% S corporation shareholders follow a different route: the company pays or reimburses the premiums and reports them in W-2 wages, and the deduction is then taken personally. Ask your CPA to set it up.
Get Covered Illinois, the state-run exchange in Illinois, sells dental plans alongside its health plans during enrollment periods, and its rules decide whether dental can be added on its own. Outside the Marketplace there is no enrollment window for stand-alone dental, and coverage usually starts the first of the next month. Enter your ZIP code in the form below and Daniel will send you the dental plans available where you live.
A stand-alone dental plan is an excepted benefit: it isn’t minimum essential coverage and doesn’t replace health insurance.
Call (713) 575-9904 and Daniel will send the dental plans sold in Woodford County and check your provider against each network.