What is orthodontics, routine, major and complex dental?

It’s a little confusing, but essentially you’d need both hospital and extras to get the max amount of help with dental surgery bills in a private hospital. If your teeth require a visit to hospital – think wisdom teeth removal, or dental implant surgery – then we can help with your hospital bills if you have dental surgery included on your hospital cover, and we can help with any of the related dentist’s bills if you have that service included in your extras.

Dental surgery is hospital treatment for surgery to the teeth and gums.

Hospital cover: That means you’ll need the right type of hospital cover if you want us to help with the bill for the hospital costs (like accommodation fees). Waiting periods apply to dental surgery, and you can check these in your product guide. For dental surgery required in hospital (or day surgery), this is 2 months if there are no pre-existing conditions, and 12 months where there’s a pre-existing condition. A pre-existing condition is one that, in the opinion of a Medical Practitioner appointed by ahm, the signs or symptoms of which existed at any time in the 6 months leading up to the day you became insured.

It’s also good to understand that even though your hospital cover can help with the hospital and aneasthetist bills, your extras cover will help with the dentist’s fees (if you have it included). There are different waiting periods for each service, which you can check in the product guide.

Extras cover: Separate to dental surgery included on some hospital cover, there are other dental services that are included in our extras cover too. Waiting periods apply to these as well – for general dental services (such as fillings) the waiting period is usually 2 months (however, refer to your product guide to confirm if this applies to you) and for complex and major dental the waiting period is 12 months.

Dental treatments include: x-rays, examinations and consultations, clean and polish procedures, tooth extractions, minor restorative services such as fillings.

Major dental is included in some Extras cover and includes treatments like indirect restorations, crowns, veneers, bridgework, implants and dentures. Some of these treatments can be done at the dental clinic or as an admission to hospital or day surgery. On our Extras cover, wisdom teeth removal is included under ‘general dental’ not ‘major dental’. 

Specialist dental treatment to correct misaligned teeth and jaws. It involves things like braces, invisalign, plates and retainers.