The Grantham Denture Clinic is happily participating in the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) to help out Canadians with lower incomes. CDCP is a federal government insurance plan for most dental matters (seeing a denturist, dentist, hygienist, oral surgeon, periodontist, etc.) for all Canadians making under $90,000 a year and who don’t already have insurance coverage through their work or through a private dental insurance plan. But in order for the government to assess your financial eligibility, you would have to have filed an Income Tax Return for last year. You also need to renew your card every year because it’s always based on your previous year’s income. The CDCP is designed to “ease financial barriers to accessing oral health care for eligible Canadian residents.” This means that it will help those with lower incomes get needed dental care when their financial restraints may otherwise prevent them from doing so.
Sun Life Assurance Company is the insurance provider that is administering the Plan for the government, so most dealings are with them for both you and us.
Patient Information
Canadian Dental Care Plan
All Canadians of ALL Ages are Now Covered. The government phased in the Dental Plan for different age groups, but as of June 1, 2025, all eligible Canadians of all ages are now covered.
Like all insurance plans, each kind of denture procedure has frequency limits: e.g. they will only pay for new dentures every 5 or 8 years, a reline every 2 years, and so forth.
How to Apply
- Eligibility Requirements – You are eligible if: (1) you don’t already have dental insurance through your work or private insurance; (2) your adjusted family net income last year was less than $90,000; (3) you filed last year’s Income Tax Return (and received your Assessment letter a few weeks later); and (4) you are a Canadian resident. If you are on ODSP or Ontario Works (OW), you still qualify for CDCP because the two plans will coordinate coverage so that your portion will be less than before CDCP.
- Notice of Assessment: Once the Canada Revenue Agency has assessed your Income Tax Return that you filed for last year’s income for yourself (and your spouse) (they will send you an Assessment letter verifying all your calculations), you can apply for the first time, or renew your card (you have to renew your card every year in May or June).
- Application & Renewal Procedure: The application or renewal procedure is very simple on the PHONE or through the ONLINE PORTAL. Once you have your Notice of Assessment for last year’s income tax, to apply for the card or renew your card, either call 1-833-537-4342 and follow the automated prompts, or do it online at https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/dental/dental-care-plan.html. The automated system is able to check your Notice of Assessment on the Canada Revenue Agency computers automatically, so it will know if your last year’s household income is, still is, or is again under $90,000 or not.
- At the end of the application or renewal procedure you will be told whether you are eligible or not. If you are told you are eligible, then (i) if you were renewing your card, see the details under Renewing Your Card Yearly in the next bullet point below. But (ii) if this is your first application for CDCP, you then wait for your package to come in the mail with your CDCP Card, your Start Date when you can first go into a dental/denture office and other information. Once you receive your package, call our office to book your first appointment under CDCP. The soonest that appointment can be scheduled is on that Start Date your package specifies.
- Renewing Your Card Yearly: CDCP coverage every year is from July 1 to June 30. So every year before the June 30 deadline you will need to re-enrol in the Plan (renew your card with Sun Life CDCP) by phone or the online portal (see Application & Renewal Procedure above on how to do this). This is because eligibility each year is based on your previous year’s household income as specified in the Notice of Assessment, which you will receive from the Canada Revenue Agency a few weeks after you filed your Income Tax Return for last year. Your card doesn’t change; you just get approved (or denied) for another year each year (if you get denied, just try renewing again in a year, because your household income could have gone down again). After you renew your card, you then wait for your approval letter telling you that you are covered for another year (bring that letter to your next appointment at our office so we can update our computer). You can renew your card after the June 30 deadline each year, but there may be a gap in coverage because your coverage for the new year only starts once they mail out your approval letter (which is probably why CDCP says before June 1 to allow enough time to prevent any gap).
Up To 80% Coverage
PLEASE NOTE: The CDCP is NOT designed to cover 100% of dental/denture products and services in Ontario–despite the confusion the government created by telling everyone it does. What the Plan was designed to do was HELP eligible Canadians with the cost of dental care, so they have more money available, for example, for groceries. The “100%” the government keeps talking about means for people making less than $70,000 a year, their coverage of the CDCP Fee Guide prices is 100%, as opposed to people who make between $70,000-80,000 getting only 60% coverage, and income between $80,000-90,000 getting only 40% coverage.
Even extra confusion is due to the fact that the CDCP Fee Guide is less than all the official individual provincial fee guides which all offices across Canada use. For example, if an office’s provincial fee guide says $100 for something, but CDCP only pays $80 for patients in that particular province making under $70K a year (so they are at the 100% CDCP level), then the patient has to pay the extra $20 out of pocket. For patients at 60% or 40% levels, they will have to pay more out of pocket. And many offices also even charge a little bit more than their provincial fee guides for various reasons (e.g. their overhead expenses are higher), so there might be a little extra the patient pays.
In general, for denture clinics like us in Ontario, CDCP pays about 80%. So your part would only be 20%, sometimes less. (But the 60% and 40% people would have to pay more as explained above, because their annual family income is higher.)
What Denture Work Does CDCP Cover?
CDCP covers most denture work.
The exceptions are—CDCP does NOT cover:
- Implant-Retained Dentures (dentures that snap onto implant posts)
- Actually, CDCP doesn’t cover any kind of denture work, period—no repairs, no relines, no anything—on a top denture if you have implant(s) in the upper arch in your mouth, or a bottom denture if you have implant(s) in the lower arch in your mouth. If you have implant(s) in only one arch (top or bottom) then denture work for the opposite arch—that doesn’t have implant(s)—is covered. It’s just the denture in the arch that has implant(s) that is not covered.
- Immediate Dentures With Soft Liners (an immediate denture is inserted right after you get your teeth extracted)
- Immediate Partial Cast Metal Framework Dentures
- The Soft Liner part of Relines & Rebases
- Some miscellaneous procedures.
For those parts that CDCP does not cover, you will just have to pay out-of-pocket. We can let you know whether your procedure is covered and exactly what your $ portion would be.
Pre-Authorization Required with CDCP: In addition, New Partial Dentures, New Complete Dentures with a Soft Liner, & New Immediate Dentures require our office to send a special request for pre-approval (e.g. for Partial Dentures, your denturist will take intra-oral pictures of your mouth to electronically send to Sun Life), where then a panel of assessors from the government will determine whether CDCP will cover that denture or not given your medical and dental history and the state of your oral dentition and tissues. Even though it seems to be very rare they deny the pre-authorization, we will still need to wait for that approval to come in before we can start (we will call you as soon as we hear, but because they are so backed up, it’s been taking up to 8 weeks to hear back).
Steps You Need To Take To Use CDCP
In summary:
- Apply for CDCP if you haven’t yet done so by calling 1-833-537-4342.
- Wait for your package to come in the mail with your CDCP card and Start Date.
- Call our office to book your free consultation appointment for whatever you need done.
- Come to your appointment and present your CDCP card to Reception. We will enter your card number into the computer and verify online that your card is active (this first time is the only time you will need to present your card).
- Based on your consultation with your denturist, we will send an estimate to Sun Life CDCP and then let you know how much they are paying and what your own balance would be. Based on this you can tell us whether you would like to proceed with the work. Note that though most estimates get immediate approval from Sun Life CDCP, some estimates we send require pre-authorization first before they are approved (see Pre-Authorization Required with CDCP above for more details).
- You will be responsible to pay your portion, and the rest we collect directly from Sun Life through a claim we send them electronically after the work is completed. Sun Life will only pay us directly: there is no way for you to pay us and collect from Sun Life–except you pay us your own portion that CDCP does not cover.
- CDCP Coverage Period: Coverage every year is from July 1 to June 30. So every year before the June 30 deadline you will need to re-enroll in the Plan (renew your card with the CDCP people). See the How to Apply section above for details.
Our Mission at Grantham Denture Clinic for more than 50 years (first with father Joe and now with son Tim as your denturists) has always been to bring our patients exceptional solutions, techniques and quality care to their denture needs along with a compassionate approach, creating a calming environment with confident, yet gentle, personalized denture care, always putting our patients first. We just love the joy we bring to our patients’ lives when we fit them with a denture that makes them feel whole again.
Office Hours
| Mon | 9:00am-5:00pm |
|---|---|
| Tue | 9:00am-5:00pm |
| Wed | 9:00am-5:00pm |
| Thu | 9:00am-5:00pm |
| Fri | Closed |
| Sat | Closed |
| Sun | Closed |
