Thursday, August 16, 2012

Oral surgery update

Had my consultation for my wisdom tooth extraction this morning.  Not a fun morning.  In typical doctor's office fashion I spent over half an hour just sitting in the waiting room.  I had the first appointment of the day so I'm really not sure why I had to wait so long and I have a suspicion that doctors are now purposefully scheduling their appointments early to make sure none of their precious time is wasted.  By the time I get into the exam room I'm already annoyed.

The assistant tells me that I have to watch a standard video about wisdom teeth and the surgery that is involved to extract them.  The video is specifically catering towards teenagers and their parents and is full of doom and gloom warnings against waiting till past the age of 25 to extract wisdom teeth.  If you keep your teeth you are at risk for all sorts of HUGE health problems... even if they don't emerge, even if they don't hurt, even if they don't come in sideways.  If you wait till you are an adult to have them removed your surgery will be more complicated, risky, painful... the entire seven minute video was basically telling me that I am an idiot with a death wish for keeping my wisdom tooth till the ripe age of 32.  Now I'm really annoyed, shouldn't they have a different video for those of us who did not know we should have undergone a major surgery on a non-problem when we were 18?!

Anyways, part of the consultation was talking about the insurance and payment.  They are going to run an estimate with my insurance company and I have to pay in full my portion on the day of the surgery.  They asked if I would be using anesthesia since some insurance companies don't cover it... um, heck yes I am!  There is not a chance that I would let someone near my mouth to cut out a part of my bone if I was awake, would anyone?  I'm hopeful that my insurance (which is pretty good) will be covering the majority of the surgery including anesthesia but we'll see in a week when I receive the quote.  

The only good thing about this situation is that I actually have the money set aside in my emergency fund to cover whatever costs come up.  I'm so thankful that I've really started getting a handle on my finances and I don't have to worry about pushing off a needed procedure or going further into debt to get it taken care of!

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