FORMS

For your convenience, below you will find all forms necessary to begin your appointment. Please complete your online forms before your appointment by clicking on the form button below and downloading your PDF. Please bring these completed forms to our office at the time of your appointment. You may also choose to arrive to your appointment 15 minutes early and fill them out in our office. Thank you.

INSURANCE

We accept most dental insurance plans although we might not be “on the list”.  We go to great lengths to document the reasons for treatment so that you get the benefits that you’ve paid for.  Nonetheless, policy rules aren’t necessarily based on “best science”.  For example, some treatment is denied knowing that on average, employees last about 2 years under a plan. If treatment is denied, you might be off the plan when the issue is raised again and the insurance company doesn’t have to “pay”.

A little history: insurance became fairly common in the late 1960s with annual benefits of about $1,000. My dad’s records show that he was charging about $100 per crown then. So you can see that in two years, you could have 20 crowns which constitutes full mouth reconstruction. Today, you still get $1,000 but that’s a fraction of the fee for a single crown.  

Contracted insurance plans ask dentists to accept a fee schedule that is 10-15 years out of date. Unfortunately, my suppliers, employees, labs, and even PG&E want to be paid on 2023 rates. You can have cheap but not excellent and cheap.

HMO'S

We are not contracted with any HMO's, but we would be happy to secure the best benefits possible for you.  Dr. Ruefenacht doesn't find it possible to deliver the quality of care he feels his patients deserve at the very low reimbursement levels offered by HMO plans. (See our philosophy above to better understand.) Our office is not structured in such a way to offer high-volume production, you may find a HMO clinic can better serve your needs. 

Our office focuses on Biomimetic Dentistry purely based on adhesive techniques that are minimally invasive and save teeth rather than amputate them as seen in Civil War Dentistry.  Our philosophy of practicing these techniques is to save teeth and avoid root canals. Dr. Ruefenacht basis these techniques on careful and thoughtful analysis which avoid mercury fillings which break teeth and traditional crowns which kill nerves. 

DELTA DENTAL “DECONTRACTED”

This year, Delta Dental decreased their “contracted” (what they allow me to charge)  fee schedule by as much as 30-70%. That means to afford to stay in business, I would have to stop bonding teeth back together with adhesive resins. I’d have to go back to using silver mercury fillings, cracking teeth, and causing root canals. It would mean sending all of my lab cases, (crowns, implants) offshore to China. I can’t go back to doing Civil War dentistry. Sending my lab work to China where the purity of materials is suspect, is a ‘no go’. So, after 40 years as a ‘contracted’ dentist with Delta (*and it used to be ‘Premier’), I have decided to "decontract" with Delta Dental... kinda like a divorce with Delta, but not from you as my patient.

I value each and every patient in my practice and I sincerely hope that you can understand this difficult decision I've been compelled to make. Julie and Paige will continue to bill your insurance as we always have, however, there will not be a contracted fee discount. 

Thank you in advance for your understanding. See you at your next appointment.