BrandStar Entertainment’s The Balancing Act with Karen Gustin

The following segment originally aired on the January 26th, 2011 show on BrandStar Entertainment’s morning TV show, The Balancing Act on Lifetime Television. The featured guest was Karen Gustin, Senior VP at Ameritas Group.

BrandStarEntertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: There’s nothing that boosts confidence more than being able to flash a beautiful white smile. But, did you know that the condition of your smile affects your overall health? It’s true. According to the American Academy of Periodontology, periodontal disease or gum disease has been linked to major health problems like cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and even diabetes. That means taking care of your teeth isn’t just a cosmetic issue—it’s a HEALTH issue.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: Dentist visits aren’t always affordable, especially if you don’t have dental coverage. In this edition of BrandStar Entertainment’s popular “My Health” series on The Balancing Act on Lifetime, Karen Gustin, Senior VP at Ameritas Group joins us to show a way to provide affordable dental coverage-- for your entire family.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: Let’s talk about oral health. Why is it so important?

Karen: It’s amazing. People think that going to the dentist is about getting a clean mouth, clean teeth and walking out feeling refreshed and it’s really linked to a lot of diseases, like birth complications, heart issues and just regular tooth decay. But, the amazing fact is some statistics that you may never have heard of before. About 51-million school hours for children are lost because of dental disease. 164-million hours are lost to adults not being able to get to work.

Karen: A lot of these could be taken care of it they would go to regular visits to the dentist and get good preventative care done, let alone the pain they could take care of—and the money they could save over the years.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: Why aren’t most people visiting their dentist regularly?

Karen: I think we just said it—PAIN is a huge thing. People are scared of dentists. Whether it’s the pain, the affordability—or maybe they just don’t have dental insurance.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: For those who have dental insurance do you find that they visit their dentists more regularly, either from your own experience or by the latest statistics? Do they go every 6 months for their cleaning?

Karen: They do, but actually they’re 2 ½ more time likely to go to the dentist WITH dental insurance. For the uninsured population like; part-time workers, seasonal workers, retirees, or stay-at-home moms-- most of them don’t know to go and look for individual dental insurance because they’re not eligible for their employer’s dental plan. Also, some don’t think they can afford it or maybe think it’s not worth the value.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: For those who don’t know what to do—what can they do?

Karen: The first thing I would do is go to the web. Do some searches. For example, with Ameritas Group-- we’ve been doing dental insurance since 1959. It’s our expertise. We have about 157-thousand access points in our participating provider panel where they can get care. We also have individual plans they can use all over.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: What do you think makes you different from some of the other insurance providers?

Karen: What we do is provide administration and service for dental, vision and hearing plans. We have total freedom of choice in our plan designs which is really nice.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: Especially if you are scared of the dentist!

Karen: Exactly! They can still go to who they trust. We’ve been doing individual plans for such a long time and we’ve recently introduced more—several new to the public that I think they’ll find very attractive.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: What are some of the plans you have available?

Karen: We only do dental, vision and hearing insurance, so we do a combination. We take the best plans that people find popular and put those in with total freedom of choice to go wherever they would like to go for care. We also make them very affordable.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: Are you hearing a lot of positive response from your customers?

Karen: We are! They love the affordability, the freedom of choice, the flexibility, the plan designs and they love our service. We have award-winning service for all of our customers calling in. You’ve probably heard with the National Healthcare Reform, that they’re covering children. A lot of uninsured adults need it too and it makes me smile to know that we’re being about to give them the care that they need.

BrandStar Entertainment - The Balancing Act on Lifetime: If you would like more information on dental insurance for yourself or for your family, log onto ameritasgroup.com.

The award-winning television production team at BrandStar Entertainment is one of the industry’s leaders. BrandStar Entertainment features a full array of creative services that include distribution, sound stages and production/post production facilities. BrandStar Entertainment is known for producing content driven shows like The Balancing Act on Lifetime Television, the only morning show in America produced by women specifically for women. BrandStar proudly carries a WomenCertified® Seal, demonstrating leadership in women friendly programming. BrandStar Entertainment’s The Balancing Act airs daily on Lifetime at 7 a.m. ET/PT. For more information, visit BrandStar Entertainment’s website for The Balancing Act at www.thebalancingact.com.