Dental, Vision & Hearing Coverage for Your Medicare Supplement — Moab

A Medicare Supplement is about the cleanest coverage you can carry. Plan G or Plan N picks up what Original Medicare leaves behind — the Part A and Part B coinsurance, the deductibles, the excess charges. You see any doctor that takes Medicare, and there's no network to fight with. That's why people in Moab like it. Out here, you don't want a plan that limits where you can go.

But here's the catch nobody warns you about. Your supplement pays $0 toward routine dental, vision, or hearing. Original Medicare doesn't cover those, so there's nothing for the supplement to fill in. Cleanings, fillings, crowns, the exam for new glasses, hearing aids — that's all on you unless you add coverage for it.

The gap is bigger than folks expect

Real numbers tell it best. A single crown runs about $1,000 to $1,500. A solid pair of hearing aids is $2,000 to $6,000. Cataract surgery itself? Medicare covers that — but the upgraded lens and the glasses after usually aren't covered.

And this isn't one-and-done. Teeth wear down. Eyes change. Hearing slips. The older we get, the more it shows up. Paid straight out of pocket, a rough year or two can cost you several thousand dollars you never budgeted for. Out here a real dentist visit can mean a drive, too — so you want the coverage working before you load up the truck.

The fix: a standalone dental, vision & hearing plan

You leave your supplement alone. You add a separate dental/vision/hearing plan on top. The supplement keeps doing the medical heavy lifting. The DVH plan handles the teeth, eyes, and ears.

The tradeoff's straightforward. You pay a monthly premium, and your dental, vision, and hearing costs go from a surprise to something predictable. Most of these plans carry an annual maximum — a cap on what they'll pay in a year — and a waiting period before they cover big work like a crown. So whether it pencils out depends on how much dental work you actually expect. We run that math out loud before you commit to anything.

Multi-policy discounts — the part most people never hear

Here's a quiet one. We have access to carriers that drop your price when you carry more than one policy with them. Put your supplement and your DVH plan with the same carrier and the combined cost can land lower than buying them apart. Not every carrier offers it, and the discount varies — that's part of what we shop on your behalf. Same coverage, smaller monthly check.

The cancer cash benefit — and why it belongs on a dental page

This is the one people don't see coming, and it's where I get the most "wait, really?" reactions.

A lump-sum cancer plan pays you — not the hospital, not the clinic — a flat amount of cash the day you're diagnosed. A common pick is $10,000. The money's yours, and you spend it however you want. No receipts to itemize, no argument over what qualifies.

So why bring it up on a dental page? Because chemotherapy is rough on teeth. Dry mouth, sores, decay, and sometimes teeth that loosen and fall out. A DVH plan with a $1,500 annual cap gets swallowed up fast against that kind of damage. The $10,000 cancer cash has no rules — rebuild your teeth after treatment, cover the long drive to treatment in the city, keep the bills paid while you're not working. It reaches the spot a DVH plan can't.

I had a fellow down here in southeast Utah who waved off the $10k benefit at first — said he'd never need it. A while later he was in treatment, and a good chunk of that cash went into fixing the teeth the chemo wrecked. He told me he was glad I'd talked him into the extra few bucks a month.

Who this fits — and who can skip it

If you're on a supplement and you're tired of your dental, eye, and ear costs being a wildcard, the DVH plan earns its keep. If cancer runs in the family, the lump-sum benefit is cheap protection for what it does.

Who might skip the DVH? Somebody with good teeth and the cash to cover a stray filling without flinching. That's a fair call — run the math and see if the premium really beats paying as you go. I'll lay both columns out and let the numbers decide. Same goes whether you came in for a supplement, an Advantage plan, or you're still figuring out which side you're on.