How Dental Insurance Companies Rig the System

Insurance companies raise premiums every year, yet lower reimbursement rates for dentists—forcing providers to work harder for less. This has nothing to do with improving patient care, and everything to do with maximizing corporate profits.

They’ve built a monopolistic grip over dentistry, controlling over 150 million Americans through restrictive PPO plans. Here's how it works:

🔁 The Insurance Playbook:

• Step 1: Secure a region by flooding it with in-network contracts (DSOs, chains, and group practices).
• Step 2: Funnel the majority of patients (about 60% of the market) into these network providers.
• Step 3: Once enough providers are locked in, they lower the UCRs (Usual, Customary, and Reasonable fees).
• Step 4: Dentists are now “preferred providers” in name only—forced to work at deep discounts with little say.
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🧨 The Fallout:

• Independent, out-of-network dentists are squeezed financially, pushed out of the market, and labeled as "too expensive"—even when they provide more personalized, higher quality care.
• Corporate chains (DSOs) benefit the most. Their model is built on high volume, low-quality care, incentivized by quotas and production bonuses—not patient outcomes.
• Dentist-controlled practices, by contrast, focus on quality, trust, and long-term relationships—but can't survive under slashed fee schedules and insurance manipulation.

🎯 The Real Goal:

The goal isn’t to care for patients—it’s to centralize control, reduce payouts, and create a corporate delivery system for dentistry where profits go up, and the soul of the profession is lost.