The Tooth Bill’s pages are written to be accurate, useful, fair to patients, dentists, insurers and lenders alike, and honest about where each fact comes from and what a page cannot know. This page sets out how that works and where its limits are.
General information about costs, not dental, medical, insurance, tax or financial advice. Your dentist decides what treatment suits you; your plan’s documents and a pre-treatment estimate decide what it pays.
How a page is made
- Research. We start from the rules and the data: federal regulations, Medicare, Medicaid and Marketplace sources, state Medicaid agencies, the IRS, the CFPB, HRSA, the VA, real plan documents, and at least three named, dated price sources for each procedure. We note what each settles and what it doesn’t.
- Writing. A draft is written from that research under The Tooth Bill name.
- Fact-check. A separate check compares each rule, limit, date, percentage, code number and price with its source, and works every sum on the page again.
- Graphics. Charts and diagrams repeat figures from the text and add no new facts. Every figure in a graphic shows its source and date. We draw no clinical diagrams of treatment and use no before-and-after pictures.
- Final review. A last read looks for errors, gaps, anything that could mislead someone about what a plan pays, what a program covers or what a credit offer costs, and anything that reads as treatment advice. If it finds a serious problem, the page is fixed and reviewed again. We do not publish a page with a serious problem still open.
Each page ends with the date its sources were checked. No process catches everything, so please tell us if you find a mistake.
Our sources
Every rule, limit, date, percentage and coverage statement links to a primary source at the claim: the eCFR and the Federal Register, the US Code, CMS and medicare.gov, medicaid.gov and state Medicaid agencies, healthcare.gov, the IRS, the CFPB, the FTC, HRSA, the VA, and the ADA Health Policy Institute’s own report for each state’s level of adult Medicaid dental benefit, named with its date. A rule is stated plainly only once we have read it in that source. If we cannot confirm something, we leave it out or say plainly that it is not confirmed. Our how we check page explains how each kind of fact is handled.
Prices have no official source, so they come from named publishers shown side by side, each with what kind of publisher it is, the date, what it measures and why it might lean, as how we estimate costs explains. Dental practice blogs, dental chains’ marketing, lead-generation sites, forums, Reddit, YouTube and “best dental insurance” lists are never a source, not for a rule, a coverage statement or a statistic. Claims from sellers appear only as claims we have checked, without naming the seller. Every source is listed on sources we use.
Rules for every page
Health money is easy to get wrong in ways that cost people. So every page follows these rules:
- A clear note near the top. Every page says it is general information about costs, not dental, medical, insurance, tax or financial advice, that your dentist decides what treatment suits you, and that your plan’s documents and a pre-treatment estimate decide what it pays.
- Costs, not treatment. No page says which treatment is right, better, safer or necessary, or whether a dentist’s plan or fee is reasonable. Comparisons, such as implants against bridges and dentures, or braces against aligners, compare money and time only. What a procedure is gets one or two plain sentences from MedlinePlus, NIDCR, the CDC or the FDA. We give no symptoms, no pain or home-remedy advice, and no success rates.
- Prices side by side, never averaged. At least three named, dated sources per procedure, each with what it measures and why it might lean. We never blend them into one figure and never judge whether a price is fair or too high, or tell you what to pay. A lender’s survey is named as a lender’s and never stands alone.
- Rules named by edition and year. Medicare’s dental rule with the eCFR’s “up to date as of” date, each Medicaid level with “data as of August 2025”, each HSA, FSA or Marketplace limit with its year and the IRS or CMS document that set it.
- No national rule that doesn’t exist. Adult Medicaid dental, denturist licensing and many dental insurance laws are state by state. We give the federal frame, then only the state details we have read in official text.
- No “typical” plan. We found no primary source for a typical coinsurance, annual maximum or waiting period, so we show named real plan documents as examples instead.
- Code numbers in our own words. Where a page names a procedure, the CDT code number may sit beside our own plain description, with the note that the CDT Code is maintained by the American Dental Association. We never copy the ADA’s descriptions and publish no code list or lookup.
- No rankings, no recommendations. We never rank a dentist, chain, insurer, plan, discount plan, lender or product, or call one the top or lowest-priced choice, and never link to an application or sign-up page. A company is named only as the publisher of a figure or a document, as the product a reader searched for, or in a regulator’s action. Lenders are called lenders in the sentence.
- No case questions. We review no treatment plans, quotes, explanations of benefits or claims, and we take no comments. Where help matters, pages name the kinds of help: the dental office, the plan, the state Medicaid agency, Medicare, health centers and dental schools.
- Tax points carry their source. Where the IRS does not say something directly, such as whether veneers done for looks can be deducted, we say the point is our reading of its rule and send you to a tax professional.
What we do not claim
- We are not a dental practice, an insurer, an agent or broker, a discount plan or a lender, and nothing here is dental, medical, insurance, tax or financial advice.
- We do not claim to have treated, examined, priced or billed any of the treatments we describe.
- We do not invent authors, quotes, patient stories, prices or reader comments.
- We do not say how long a treatment lasts or how often it works. Where a lifetime cost comparison needs a replacement interval, it is labelled “our assumption” and you can change it.
- Photos are stock images chosen to illustrate a topic. They show no real patient’s mouth, X-ray or record, and no legible practice, insurer or lender name.
Fairness
Dentists are neither villains nor heroes, and insurers and lenders are described by their own documents. A dental fee covers an office, staff, equipment, a lab and a professional’s time, and a plan is a contract with limits both sides agreed to. Pages are written for anyone trying to understand a dental bill: patients, family members helping them, and people who work in the field. Where sources disagree, we show that and do not pick a winner. Sometimes the honest answer is that only the dentist, the plan or the agency can answer the question.
Calculators
Our calculators are formulas with named inputs and shown working, and each formula is checked against answers worked by hand before it goes live. They use the published ranges, plan terms and rules they name, with their dates, and the numbers you enter. Every default that is a price, rate or rule says where it comes from, or that it is our assumption, and you can change it. Results are estimates. They never pick a treatment, say what a plan will certainly pay, or say whether you qualify for anything.
Updates and corrections
Medicare’s rules, Medicaid benefits, yearly limits, lenders’ terms and published prices change, so pages are rechecked on the schedule set out on our how we check page, and sooner when we learn a source has changed. A page shows an updated date only when its content really changed. Errors are fixed and recorded on our corrections page.
Advertising and independence
Display advertising pays for this site, and advertisers have no say over what we publish. We use no affiliate links, accept no paid placements, sell no leads, refer no one to a dentist, sell no plans, cards or loans, and rank no one. Our about page has more on how the site works.