New here with questions about underbite surgery!

[khopew]

Hey Everyone,
First of all, I would like to thank everyone for this site, I have learned so much by reading many of the posts here!

Here is my story: I’m 28 years old and have a class 3 underbite that I want to have corrected. When I was 14 years old I had braces put on and had them until I was 18, my teeth were straightened during this time, but my underbite was not corrected. I was told that I needed jaw surgery to correct my underbite. My mother was not able to afford my surgery, she was told that it would not be covered by any insurance, (I’m not really sure how far she looked into this, I only remember visiting one surgeon when I initially got braces) and she tried to save for the 20k surgery (price at the time), but she was a single mom and we were relatively poor. When I turned 18 I had my braces removed because the ortho said he had done all he could without jaw surgery and I sure couldn’t afford it myself.

Now, over ten years later, I am ready to start the process of getting the surgery. I have visited my current dentist, been referred to an ortho (I no longer live near my old ortho) which I am seeing in a month and was told after choosing an ortho I would then move on to a consult with an oral surgeon.

My questions are about insurance coverage, how often does insurance cover this type of surgery? I know that I won’t get a real answer until I have spoken to the ortho/oral surgeon, but in the month or more that I’m waiting for the real answer, I thought I could get an idea here. I know that it may depend on whether it is a skeletal deformity or just tooth alignment, I’m guessing if it was tooth alignment my 4 years of braces would have fixed it. I have problems chewing, speaking at times (have been to tons of speech therapy while in school, they said it was due to my bite) and I have a long history of sinus problems, which, I have seen mentioned here, but my ENT hasn’t mentioned it being from the underbite, yet. I have what is considered good insurance with Anthem blue cross/blue shield in VA, but have no idea what will be covered.

I am fully prepared to cover the costs of getting braces again out of pocket but there’s no way I can afford a 40k operation. I would love any advice/experiences that would help me approach this hurdle between me and a underbite-free life!

Thanks again!

[mikeg]

you should be able to get insurance to cover at least a partial portion of your treatment. TMJ, speech issues, chewing issues, etc are all NOT cosmetic and should be covered under your medical insurance. I recommend you start the process of finding a VERY good ortho and surgeon that work together a lot. Sometimes the referral from you dentist is not good enough.... Do you research online here, youtube, etc.

Good luck... I'm going through the same thing, and my surgery date will be sometime in June.