Root canal treatment – Statutory health insurance – Cost coverage
Root canal treatment: When does the statutory health insurance cover the costs??
In order for the health insurance company to cover the costs of root canal treatment for patients with statutory health insurance, the treatment must be promising and the tooth must be worth preserving.
The chances of success of saving the tooth with root canal treatment are good, if the dentist during the procedure the root canals up to respectively. can be treated close to the root tip and also fill it tightly.
In the case of root canal treatment of the posterior molars, certain conditions apply so that the health insurance company will cover the cost of the treatment:
- The tooth is in a complete row of teeth. The treatment avoids the formation of gaps.
- The treatment prevents the tooth row from being shortened on one side.
- The treatment can preserve existing dentures.
If these requirements are not met, root canal treatments are an exclusively private service.
Root canal treatment: special techniques are private service
With special instruments and techniques of root canal treatment, which go beyond the standard treatment, such as e.B. the electrometric root canal length determination, the ultrasound or laser application or the surgical microscope, it is possible to detect even the smallest structures inside the patient’s teeth during the procedure and to free them from bacteria and tissue residues during root canal treatment.
The dentist also often uses disposable instruments in machine root canal treatment procedures. In this case, the success rates of root canal treatments nowadays can be over 90 percent.
“However, the additional time, expertise and technical equipment required by the dentist for root canal treatment are not covered by the statutory health insurers,” explains Dr. Bijan Vahedi, dentist for endodontics in Augsburg and president of the German Society for Endodontics (DGET).
“These are private services that patients have to pay for themselves during root canal treatment,” says Vahedi. In any case, the patient must be informed in writing about the possible costs and agree before the treatment begins.
Conclusion: In the case of necessary and promising root canal treatment, the health insurance company covers the costs of the standard treatment for those with statutory health insurance.
Special techniques that go beyond the standard root canal treatment are private services. These additional costs are not covered by the public health insurance. Which costs private health insurances take over, depends on the chosen contract.
