Pennsylvania Legislature and Governor Tom Corbett signed and passed a bill that requires insurance companies to cover the cost of general anesthesia for young children and patients with disabilities.

Dr Bernie Dishler, president of the Pennsylvania Dental Association, stated for people who can not be handled in a normal dental setting, their situation just gets worse and worse, and then you have to deal with infection and all sorts of things that have occurred because a small cavity wasn’t taken care of.

Part of the problem is that many private insurance plans have yearly maximum limitations that caps out at $1500 – $2000 for dental service. The use of general anesthesia can eat up most if not all of that cost, leaving people having to pay out-of-pocket for either the anesthesia or the dental work. That out-of-pocket cost can cause people to put off dental treatment, which often leads to more serious and costly problems.

Dr Dishler stated that “Anesthesia is a medical procedure and it should be covered by medical insurance. In fact, in the Medicaid situation where kids or adults are covered by Medicaid, they take care of general anesthesia.”

There was a fear that requiring insurance companies to cover it on top of other dental procedures would be too costly. Yet that has not been the case elsewhere. Thirty-one other states have already passed this legislation and they’ve shown that it has not affected premium rates appreciably.