paying for your dental care in san francisco

Patients with PPO dental insurance may not participate in the Discount Club. This is because your insurance plan already offers you a discount on our fees. Patients with HMO dental insurance or MediCal, however, are eligible since our office is NOT able to collect payments from them.

There is no refund or discount for unused services. Patients alone are responsible for ensuring they schedule to utilize these services before the plan year ends. The office will make every effort to schedule patients in a timely manner upon request, but is not liable if there is limited availability for appointments. 

The membership plan and associated services are for one individual only and are non-transferable.

If you have an "out of network" PPO insurance, you can absolutely use your insurance benefits with us, often at the same level of coverage as an in-network provider. We will bill insurance our usual and customary fees on your behalf and collect payment directly from insurance.  

Your insurance plan should be able to share with you its table of allowed fees for services and percentages of what they cover.

Since getting this information for us before the first visit is often challenging, Lands End Dental will collect a $50 deposit for a new patient comprehensive exam, x-rays, and a standard cleaning if we cannot give you a precise estimate before your first visit. If your insurance pays more than this, we will refund this deposit back to you.

After your first visit to our office, whether you are in or out of network, we will send in preauthorization to your insurance for cost estimates for any future necessary dental work. Any balances remaining after insurance payments will be owed to the office. 

For those with HMO insurance or MediCal, while we cannot utilize your insurance benefits, we can still offer our Discount Plan above.

This is the upper limit of what your insurance will pay for your dental care and usually resets every year. This maximum is NOT based on what you need or what your dentist recommends. It is based on how much your employer pays into the plan and the rules imposed by your insurance company. In fact, the maximum benefits on most plans have not budged since the 1970's! 

Most plans do not cover all procedures, and insurance companies determine what they will contribute on a case by case basis. For example, an individual plan may contribute 100% of preventative care services, but only 50% towards the cost of a dental filling, assuming they consider the type and location of filling that you need to be a covered benefit.

Because dental insurance rules and intricacies can be complex, we typically send in a pre-estimation of coverage before starting work to see what they will contribute, though these estimations are not binding.